A Wizard Thief In London
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Very AU. Sister story to A Wizard Thief in America with a near identical first chapter, set in a world where muggleborns Lily and James' plan to send Harry away failed. After Harry dealt with Voldemort he went back to his roots as a pickpocket and a burglar, trying to deal with life.
1. Chapter 1 The End of the Potters

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own any of the characters, settings, or the magic - I just own the ideas that make my stories come true.

Author's note - This story's sister story, A Wizard Thief in America, is written virtually the same except for a little bit of difference in the wording - please don't be confused. It's only when you read it, you'll realise how different it is to the other story, particularly at the end.

 **Prologue - The End of the Potters.**

Lily Potter sat listlessly at the table of the living room of the cottage she and her husband were living in at Godric's Hollow. She still couldn't believe what she'd just learnt from scanning Voldemort earlier - she didn't know whether to laugh or weep. How stupid could the bastard be to use that kind of magic? Lily closed her eyes and sank deeper into the chair. The dark red haired and heavily pregnant young witch hoped that by sitting still for long periods without doing much after the hell in Diagon Alley earlier today then her adrenaline would run down, but truthfully her mind was too shaken to process what she had just learnt. She had been a mess at hospital when her husband James had taken her there, but she had been glad she had insisted on visiting a muggle hospital. It was simple sense - there were too many Healers in St. Mungo's hospital of magical maladies who were sympathetic to the aims of the Death eaters. There were daily reports of people in the hospital who'd died of accidents, and she didn't want to deal with another Death eater, only one who was disguised as someone sworn to help.

Dumbledore would probably not like it, but she didn't care. She had refused to tell her husband about what she'd learnt during the fighting with Lord Voldemort - if she and James had not been set up she would've been surprised, and those Order members who were 'discreetly' nearby had proven that Dumbledore was playing his little games again - and in that fight she had magically scanned the Dark Lord when the bastard murderer was occupied with fighting her husband and the Order members.

If James had been murdered then it would simply be recorded as yet another muggleborn needlessly slaughtered by that psychopath. The Ministry didn't care about the rising statistics. Lily and James Potter were both muggleborns who had not known they were magical until their eleventh birthdays, though Lily had known about the truth of those weird events where something miraculous happened was magic earlier than James or others like her did, thanks to Severus Snape. Lily grimaced in distaste at the thought of the greasy haired Death eater.

Yeah, he might have been her 'friend' growing up, but Lily had always known he'd lusted after her rather than loved her, if he thought he was being Slytherin by covering up those looks he sent her way, looks of hunger like a lion who hadn't seen an antelope for a fortnight, then he needed his brain examined. Then again Severus had never been very good at moving on past his emotions. To Lily, she would always be grateful for him for telling her about magic. But she was not grateful for the way he just sank into a crowd when he should know better.

She knew Severus's home life was appalling but it wasn't an excuse to become a Death eater. Lily shook her head in sadness at the thought of Severus being marked like a branded cattle, but that was the life he had chosen, and if Severus couldn't see the sorry excuse of a life he now had she didn't want to know him.

She couldn't work out why he'd thought she'd go out with him when the company he had fallen into at school had put her off, and the way he listened and absorbed that hateful shit about blood purity….. Lily shook her head as she became lost in memories that didn't really make any difference now - she didn't want to think of the Junior Death eater movement which was still being a major problem at Hogwarts, not helped by the stance of Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers. The place was becoming a Death eater factory and training camp, not helped by the teachers and their lack of action. Did they really think by turning a blind eye they were helping?

Lily was truly disappointed in some of her former teachers, she knew she wasn't the only one. It wasn't a nice feeling for her since she had learnt a great deal from them, but she couldn't help it.

If they had pulled their fucking fingers out and punished some of those students who had been infected by the disease that was Lord Voldemort who had paraded around the magical world like Adolf Hitler, saying all the magical world's problems were due to muggleborns, but Lily and James were convinced some of those teachers had agreed with him. Too many Death eater wannabes at Hogwarts were given too easy a ride out of the school.

So much for the lies that muggleborns were treated as equal. As far as she knew, muggleborns were still being visited by the teachers from the school and being told that lie. It wasn't true. Muggleborns were seen as scum.

It was the prejudice that made strained her relationship with Marlene and Alice, but now she only had one of her friends left since Marlene had died not so long ago, and even Lily didn't know how long her friendship with Alice would last.

Lily had often thought aloud that the magical version of the Star of David the Nazis had used to pick out the Jews would be passed around to the muggleborns, and a few other muggleborns had agreed with her when things had begun to get worse. Lily could picture it happening - some weird magical symbol being passed around to the muggleborns, teachers picking them out in the crowd and making them perform humiliating rituals, and all the time Albus Dumbledore sitting serenely in his golden throne in the Great Hall saying his hands were tied, his eyes twinkling insincerely with a look of pitying understanding on his face, though truthfully Dumbledore didn't understand and he didn't want to either.

There were exceptions amongst the teachers of course - Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout, Horace Slughorn - but they were only a few exceptions but they had managed to give the muggleborn students hope, whereas people like Minerva McGonagall didn't seem to care. During those times when she and her fellow muggleborns were being harassed, sometimes in the Great Hall, she would see Dumbledore's look of amusement as if the suffering before him was one great big and very sick joke.

Many muggleborns and even some half bloods who were closer to their muggle roots had lost their faith in the old wizard. It had been a few years since Lily and James had been at Hogwarts, but they didn't know if they even wanted to know how the next generation of muggleborns were walking around in packs, keeping an eye open for Junior Death eaters and defending themselves when the teachers didn't seem to care. Were the teachers still turning a blind eye? Was Flitwick doing his best to mitigate the worst of the prejudice seeing he was a half goblin himself? Was Dumbledore still unapproachable, and did he still look at the bullying like it was funny while saying his hands were tied, a stupid excuse if anyone had ever heard one?

Lily shook her head as she remembered how things had gone down hill one day when she realised that the magical world was not what she'd thought it would be, though there had been signs for sometime.

Snape had called her a mudblood, one of the most foulest things she had ever been called because it attacked not just her but her entire heritage, when she had made the mistake of trying to help his ungrateful arse when the marauders were bullying him. The marauders - Frank Longbottom, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew - were a gang of Gryffindor boys who had attacked the kids of some of the other houses.

They called it pranking. Lily called it bullying. She wasn't alone either, and many muggleborns went out of their way to avoid the obnoxious boys though Remus Lupin was more bearable, though his cowardice left much to be desired. And it seemed the anger of the pranked students who had been forced to endure it year upon weary year had festered and had made many of them turn to Voldemort, and now they were marked Death eaters who ran around in halloween costumes that crossed with Ku-Klux-Klan inspired clothing complete with masks to hide their faces, but Lily called them cowardly for refusing to show who they really were and getting their revenge on everyone.

Truthfully the marauders were as bad, if not worse, than the Junior Death eaters and it was made worse by the fact Dumbledore protected them. Sometimes he did it openly.

Lily and James had never liked the marauders, in fact few of the muggleborns did since the idiotic Gryffindor boys involved them unwillingly in those stupid pranks of theirs. Unlike their magically raised fellow students, there was a line that had to be drawn between pranking and bullying, and the muggleborns had been aware of that line the whole time.

James was unlucky enough to have to share the same dorm with them for 7 years. He had tried to make friends with them because he was the only muggleborn in their dorm and he had needed the support, but his lack of knowledge about their world and the fact he was a muggleborn strained any attempts of friendship. That was something Lily had always been bothered by, if you didn't even know or had even met a muggle or a muggleborn, how can you know you automatically hate them? Anyway, it hadn't mattered - over the years James had become disgusted by the attitudes of the boys who hadn't been very nice, and he had joined the muggleborn group which had been formed as the political climate outside the school grew more soured by Voldemort.

Lily had also joined when it became clear to her that Snape was becoming more and more involved with the Death eaters, and when the teachers lack of response or support for the muggleborns just grew day upon day until the muggleborns simply gave up hoping one of them would start helping them.

Unlike James who had been forced to bunk with four immature little boys, she had been with two of the best friends she'd ever had. Unlike boys like Frank and Sirius, Marlene and Alice had been automatically supportive of her because of her heritage, and it was from the pair of them Lily had learnt more about the magical world and its problems, but there was a gulf between them but they were more fascinated by her being a muggleborn than anything else. But over the years Marlene and Alice had distanced themselves from her like many of the other pureblood witches and wizards in the school who had muggleborn friends. Voldemort was showing his true colours all the time by murdering families who either refused to join in with him or those who believed he was going too far.

The separation from her friends had hurt, but that hurt her the most was the fact she could understand them.

After Snape had shown his true colours, Lily had become more involved with James and she was glad she had. They had already formed a bond despite James's occasional arrogance, but if there had ever been a choice without Snape calling her that foul name then it would only have James. Unlike Snape, James was willing to be there for her.

Lily shook her head out of her school memories and focused on the last two years. She and James had married after school and they had both become curse breakers since the other jobs were being pressured by those high up in magical society to deny muggleborns or half bloods who lived in the muggle world access to magical jobs. The goblins didn't give a damn if a human was muggleborn, half blood or not - to them a human was a human. Lily and James hadn't wanted to be curse breakers but they had little choice because of the coming war, and like many muggleborns who were just fed up of the prejudice and lack of action from those like Dumbledore who was supposedly a champion of their rights as living and thinking people, not barbarians who'd been civilised like a monkey being taught tricks and taught how to dress in a stupid costume, the newly wedded Potters had done their best to ignore the war and simply hope it passed over their heads.

Unfortunately, it hadn't worked.

Lily and James had become involved with the fighting when Albus Dumbledore pressured them into joining the Order of the Phoenix.

Lily grimaced at the thought of the Order. She had never met such a useless bunch before. Oh, they believed they were putting up a good fight since they were on their own, but Lily could see many ways they could be better, but she knew better than to tell them that. She knew she'd be wasting her time. Dumbledore wouldn't listen to her.

Others like Molly Weasley would argue with her, yelling at the top of her banshee voice that she should be ashamed of doubting a great wizard like Albus Dumbledore.

When she'd been younger Lily had never liked the thought of vigilante groups, but as she grew older and learnt that rules and laws of order could be changed or altered slightly that in the end they made little difference. Nowadays Lily didn't really care about magical laws since they did nothing to protect muggleborns.

The war against Voldemort had become an open war three years ago after years and years of political wrangling, though there had always been a shadow of darkness draped over the magical world like a slick of oil, drowning everyone. Lily closed her eyes as she tried to force out the terrible memories she had accumulated during that time; watching people being slaughtered needlessly, muggle homes with the Dark Mark hovering overhead with the doors and windows disintegrated, blood smearing the floors with women and girls bloodied and showing obvious signs of rape. It was just as bad in the magical world.

Voldemort might claim he was doing what he did for the good of the pureblood wizards, but he was murdering families who were supposedly pure, and the number of people being murdered was rising more and more with the Death eaters gleefully slaughtering people they had probably met at parties without a care in the world. To make matters worse their ranks were being filled all the time, usually by morons and desperate sick bastards who wanted to have a proper outlet for their disgusting tastes, and people were disappearing.

Many muggleborns had fled the war, never to be seen again, and Lily couldn't say she blamed them. A few were staying to try to fight and they fought dirty, much to the anger of Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic who in many ways were sympathetic to the Death eaters and it didn't help that Minister Bagnold was fucking hopeless.

But really, what did they expect? What did Dumbledore with all his useless double talk expect? Did he really think the muggleborns wouldn't lash out after all the shit he and others had pushed them down? What did Bagnold expect? The woman had never been Lily's favourite person when it became clear that she couldn't see the cancer the Death eaters were, for tying the hands of the aurors and anyone else who wished to fight. Didn't she realise that this wasn't a political game? Lily had decided she didn't care for her reasonings because while she was beginning to show signs of seeing reality, it was too little and too late in Lily's mind.

It had taken Bagnold a few years, but now she was seeing that the war was not what she had imagined it to be. What efforts she was putting in now were too little, too late in Lily's opinion.

Lily frowned as she thought about how suddenly she and James had been pushed into the war by an outside influence and they had encountered Voldemort three times this year and today's little skirmish was the third time. Because of their profession and because they travelled to other countries where there were dozens of spells, curse breakers were encouraged by the goblins to study the old magical spells found in old libraries or tombs to build their spell repertoire to understand the magic of the wards, and Lily and James had quite a large repertoire of ancient and really dangerous curses that really helped to even the playing field between them and the Death eaters. Voldemort was a challenge, but at least with those curses they lived to fight another day.

Lily was a wicked duelist though she was more of a fighter - she didn't really like the etiquette that went into magical duelling - and thanks to her petite willowy build she was light and quick on her feet, and with her talent for using vicious spells and everyday domestic charms in her fighting she was an unpredictable fighter.

Fighting Voldemort was no longer an option for Lily in her present state, and to make matters worse Lily believed Dumbledore had made sure she and James were in Diagon alley when the attack took place. It was too much of a coincidence, they were trying to avoid the Dark bastard and his followers, and yet they seemed to turn up all the time, and things had gotten more suspicious when Voldemort had ignored everyone else the moment he had laid eyes upon them both, and the look in the sick wizard's eyes at the sight of her pregnant belly had terrified Lily. She had been forced to hide in a shop and provide covering fire from a position of safety, and it was during that terrifying experience that Lily had decided to magically scan Voldemort while he was distracted.

When she had studied the results she couldn't believe the monster would do something so disgusting and yet so stupid. Was Voldemort really desperate he would make them? After the fighting was over, despite whatever insistence of Dumbledore that such things were safe and hadn't been compromised, Lily had insisted herself that she and her husband go to a muggle hospital to have her checked up.

After nearly being killed by blood purists who'd love nothing more than to murder her and her unborn 'filthy blood' baby, Lily hadn't wanted to take the risk healers with dark sympathies getting their hands on her.

There were dozens of Death eater sympathisers in and around magical society, people who believed the sick lies muggleborns stole magic from pureblood witches and wizards, rendering them as squibs, and wanted to do something about it. When the fighting was over and James suggested them go to a hospital, she'd insisted they simply go into the muggle world for a checkup. No, being with muggles again was better than being with wizards. Lily had grown sick of them for one day.

What followed was a thorough check up on her baby, and though she and James like every other muggleborn tried to spend as much time in the muggle world as possible though many had been abused and tormented over the years by their peers and families who hadn't known that their children were actually magical only to see the magical world was no better so they were caught between two worlds, but it was a better choice than being murdered by the people nearby you without anyone raising a finger to stop it.

James knew she had learnt something, but they couldn't talk about it and even when they'd come back to this fucking cottage Dumbledore had put them in, for 'protection', she and James had been summoned to an Order meeting. She had refused to go - the doctors had prescribed rest for her, and if Dumbledore thought for one instant she was going to one of his pointless meetings he would get another thing coming. She had no intention of seeing the useless bastard now, and besides she was too worn out after the day she'd had, and if Dumbledore thought she was going to put a meeting first above her baby then she would methodically introduce the old fool to a number of slow torture spells that she'd discovered from an ancient Chinese tomb. She had told James to go for the pair of them while she rested here.

Lily only hoped James came back with something good to tell her.

* * *

The instant James Potter walked through the door of the new HQ of the Order - the Order had to move to different locations because Dumbledore was having a lot of trouble finding a decent place to hold the meetings, or if he thought he was being too clever for the Death eaters by making it hard for them to track the Order down, but why that would be James didn't really care - he knew he would be having problems.

He was still shaken by the attack in Diagon earlier and the knowledge that Lily had found something out because of her scan, but she had refused to tell him when Dumbledore had summoned them to this ridiculous meeting.

The Order - he and his wife hadn't even known they had been nearby in the alley - had taken heavy casualties, not helped by Dumbledore's stupid policy of stunning the bastards so they can have a chance of redemption.

But the problem was the Order simply didn't have the mindset to fight and win this war, and that combined with Dumbledore's questionable policy didn't make a good combination for fighting a war against an enemy who didn't have the same scruples as he did. The meetings were just chats like a really bad writers group who met once a month to discuss writing when all it was were just brainless chats.

None of the Order members, barring one or two really, had any interest in fighting or even lifted a finger to help anyway. Sure, some of them were skilled, some - like Moody, and the former marauders though he knew that bunch of idiots still thought of themselves as pranksters - were willing to go the extra mile to fight back.

But the others…

Half of them were old, and some of them were just old friends of Dumbledore's brought in for Christ knew what reason, though what contribution they actually made for the war effort James had long since stopped trying to work out. Lily was the same. She often sneered about the members behind their backs at the end when they returned to wherever they were staying, asking herself and him what would possess Dumbledore to recruit such useless people in the first place when he should be recruiting genuine aurors, curse breakers, healers, unspeakables, and even criminals to tell them all what the state the war was having in all avenues of society, and who were willing to do the jobs needed to stop the spread of Voldemort's philosophy.

People like that had a great deal of influence over a war.

But no. Instead the Order consisted of old people afraid of lifting a finger to fight back. For some reason, Lily had come to suspect Dumbledore wanted the war to be waged the way it was with people who were virtually useless because it meant HE could influence the outcome of the war. James had the feeling his wife was right. Dumbledore's need to treat this whole mess like a game of chess made him ill.

What was worse were their attitudes.

Many of the Order members, barring a couple were pureblood witches and wizards, and some of them hadn't really even spoken to a muggleborn in their lives, and as a result many of them had much the same prejudices as the Death eaters only they weren't as extreme. The mixed messages confused Lily and and James. But there were times the Potters chose not to attend, unfortunately it had made some of the members who thought more with their mouths and less with their heads believe they were Death eaters themselves. Lily and James ignored that little mob. They weren't going to bother defending themselves, nor were they going to say they would rather fight the bastard who was waging a double war on the muggle world and the magical world, and not caring who he killed in the meantime, since they knew the mob wouldn't listen.

Granted, Lily had been pissed at first, but so had he. Now they didn't really pay much attention.

Others simply didn't like muggleborns like the typical pureblood didn't because they believed that as muggleborns they wanted to change magical culture and everything they knew because many muggleborns were often heard complaining about the differences in the magical world.

They needn't have worried about Lily and James - both had passed the point where they believed the magical world could be changed because they had both realised magical culture was very different and there was nothing they could do about it, and after everything that had happened they had passed the point of interest and had approached apathy with the speed of an Intercontinental Missile.

They didn't care about the wizarding world, and they preferred the world of tombs, deserted cities and temples to the living world since they knew that was where the wizarding world would head if they continued to murder everyone they didn't like. Personally neither of them really cared if the Wizarding world ended up like that, and they felt they deserved it.

James hadn't blamed his wife for refusing to attend tonight's meeting, she was under enough strain as it was and the last thing he wanted to do was put their child at risk. If Dumbledore didn't like it, that was just too fucking bad. James didn't know that his thoughts mirrored Lily, but it didn't matter. Besides Lily didn't like the Order of the Phoenix since she was certain they'd been manipulating her and James into joining when so many other muggleborns could make contributions and maybe do something.

Instead the pair of them had to contend being the only muggleborns in the group, forced to listen to the pureblood majority who made up the group talk about the murders of muggleborns sound like an everyday event.

"Ah, James," Dumbledore was standing up in front of the massive table with dozens of other witches and wizards, James recognised many of them but he and his wife hadn't really bothered to socialise with many of them. "But where is Lily? She should be here."

"My wife didn't want to come," James replied, deciding to be honest. "After the attack in the alley, can you blame her?"

Minerva McGonagall spoke up, looking worried. She had always been fond of the Potters before they'd married though she was still unaware that the feeling was not mutual, and that James and Lily had lost their respect for her long ago. "Is she alright?" she asked looking worried and concerned. "Is the wee bairn okay?"

James wasn't sure how to answer that question because of the person asking it. The concern was touching but in his opinion too late; McGonagall had been the deputy headmistress, and she had had the power to give more help for the muggleborns like him and Lily than the others, but she hadn't done it. He would never forget the times the Junior Death eaters sometimes went too far and she and Dumbledore didn't do anything to punish them, it was because of those actions the Death eaters believed they could anything and everything to make other people's lives a living hell, to say nothing of Bagnold's stance of placating their worthless families by following Dumbledore's example and doing nothing when she should have instead confiscated their precious fortunes and made them destitute. Okay, that would probably have signed her death warrant, but at this point too many would love to see the Minster disappear.

Why Dumbledore couldn't see his policy of turning the other cheek was doing more harm than good was anybody's guess.

"She'll be fine," he said at last without giving too much away, knowing if he gave too much away then Dumbledore would ask too many questions - his interest in his unborn child and the one Alice Longbottom was carrying herself was too obvious, and it was beginning to worry James and Lily.

The less he knew the better. "We'd both been through a lot today."

If James had hoped the Order meeting to begin after that he was in for a disappointment. Molly Weasley opened her fat mouth. "A pregnant woman has no place in the fighting. Lily has finally realised her place is in the home."

Alice shouted a protest at Molly as James stiffened, and his voice was even more dangerous. "Lily and I were caught unawares by the Death eater attack. What was she supposed to do? She hid in a shop and provided cover. I think you'll find my wife is more talented than you are," he said, ignoring the bridling woman who had poked her nose and her fat mouth into their lives without thinking that perhaps she should just keep her opinions to herself. But Molly's unwanted opinion didn't make him angry, no what made him angry was how the attention of the Order had been placed at the Potters' door.

"Excuse me, but I was under the impression this meeting was concerning the war, not whether my wife is pregnant and should be cooking as if nothing had happened. Can we get on with this please?"

Dumbledore nodded when he finally saw that he wasn't going to get anything out of James. He had hoped to find out a little bit more about what the Potters had done in the attack. But he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere. "Yes, we can. A good idea James, but I would like to speak to you about your use of spells in the battle-"

"That was not a battle," Moody interrupted with his characteristic growl, though James was not sure if the man was defending him or not. The auror's impatience was so thick you could see him clenching his fists angrily. James eyed him with respect since it proved that Dumbledore's constant holier than thou stupidity was grating on the scarred and grizzled dark wizard catcher as it was on the Potters. "We had our arses kicked Albus because you keep insisting we should stun them to give them the chance to repent. The only thing these scum understand is how to kill people, and we'll never match that if we keep using stunners. Face facts, it is not going to happen!"

There were voices that muttered in agreement with that stance and Dumbledore and his little posse of sycophants who repeated his talk the Death eaters should be forgiven and their crimes forgotten took the opposing view. James had to fight the urge to snicker at the look on Dumbledore's face as the voices became more annoyed. This was one of the reasons why the Order of the Phoenix simply didn't work. Too many of the members had been killed and their families along with them simply because they had naively followed the view the war could be ended with stunners, but all that happened was the order members who stunned one Death eater and stunned two others before fighting more would have to face the 3 they had fought before in a never ending battle, and the Death eaters didn't show mercy. They went for the jugular and they enjoyed playing games which would get order members who didn't like fighting killed after they grew tired of repeating the cycle of being stunned and waking up or being revived by one of their pals and fighting back even harder before deciding enough was enough.

The Potters were one of a handful of members who used excessive force against the Death eaters, Moody was another. James and Lily didn't like killing anyone. The only problem was they were often caught up in situations where they would have no choice but to kill, they didn't like it but that was life. That Lily was pregnant was another reason why the pair of them had a shoot first, ask questions later policy when it came to the war.

Molly Weasley just couldn't keep her gob shut. "Albus is right, if we kill any of them we prove we're no better than the Death eaters. Besides Albus always says there are alternatives to killing someone!"

There were overlapping voices of agreement from the Dumbledore posse but James saw the majority of people from Alastor Moody and Frank Longbottom and others looking at Molly with disdain. You could always count on her to stick up for Dumbledore even when it was clear the old wizard was clearly in the wrong.

James had often asked himself why Dumbledore had inducted Molly and Arthur into the Order, and had guessed not many people had wanted to get involved with the war, or wanted to put themselves into a position where they'd be killed. Some of those people had been labelled as dark by Dumbledore which James saw as a little extreme, but James saw the Greengrasses and their stance of neutrality as a sign many people didn't want to get involved because it could get them killed. James was not surprised by their stance.

The Greengrass family had a newly born daughter, they weren't going to make her into an orphan for Albus Dumbledore. Besides he didn't really care if the Greengrass family and others were dark; they had more than enough enemies as it was without labelling others whose only crime was having minds of their own and didn't follow the old fool who was too blind to see that not everyone gave a damn about the so called 'Greater Good' that he preached on a daily basis. If Dumbledore couldn't see for himself that the Greengrass family simply wanted to be left alone to protect their child, then he was even more out of it than James had thought.

If he had had his way, he and Lily wouldn't be involved in this in the first place. And then he and his wife would be labelled as dark simply because they didn't want anything to do with Dumbledore. Free will was something alien to the old fool. The fact that the Potters were muggleborns made it more ridiculous.

"Enough!" Sirius Black barked, and everyone shut up. "It's time to wake up, we managed to stop Voldemort today but the war's not going to stop just because of that! We need to fight back."

James didn't hold his breath, knowing full well nothing enlightening would come out of this.

"We can't become like the Death eaters!" Molly simply wouldn't let it go.

James sighed under his breath and wished he had something for his growing headache, but he needn't have bothered to hide his sigh - the ambient noise in the room made his sigh unheard if he'd done it aloud. So much for the idiots getting their fingers out of their arses.

Black glared at the increasingly fat woman who put more pounds on with each of her many pregnancies. "Listen, the longer this war goes on the more people who agree with Voldemort will flock to his cause, and believe they're invincible. It's time for you to wake up; we are losing this war. Say it with me, Weasley, perhaps it will sink in!"

Rolling his eyes at the sight of the bunch of the Order members wincing in fear, and look around themselves as if expecting the Dark Lord himself to appear with his haunting bone white skin that looked curiously like a cross between snake scales and human skin, and those red eyes narrowed into slits, James wondered if the Order members were stupid. The Order headquarters were always warded to prevent the taboo working, and since Dumbledore said it, why would this bunch of Dumbledore worshippers fear it and have little faith in their leader?

James eyed Sirius Black wonderingly. He had never liked the marauders for the way they bullied others at school, to this day he was pleased he had never joined their little gang of misfits though they had only pranked him during the night until he had cursed them all so badly they had decided he wasn't worth it. Gryffindors were supposed to be brash and brawny, but in Jame's eyes they were a bunch of fools who rushed in stupidly, but after that night when he had lost his temper they had backed off.

He had done it every month and year afterwards to simply get them off his back, and he had built his repertoire of curses. McGonagall had scolded him each time, but James had ignored it since the woman was too weak willed to do anything more. But now James was seeing a different side of them. He still didn't like them though because he had met dozens of Death eaters who had probably only joined the Dark Lord simply to get revenge on people like Black and Longbottom for their actions, and he knew they weren't as extreme as others, and he wondered if Black's little speech was said more out of pity than genuine anger. If it wasn't for him and his idiot friends then maybe those same people wouldn't have joined the enemy. Their all out secret little war with the Slytherins and the Junior Death eaters had only stoked the fire in their minds and made them join Voldemort in waves.

James didn't bother adding anything meaningful to the table - he didn't even care when he was rebuked by Dumbledore and Molly over his brutal approach to fighting, he had been rebuked so many times in the past he didn't let it get to him anymore. They hadn't been there, they hadn't seen many of the battles with the Death eaters, and so they couldn't claim the moral high ground.

He had done what he had too to fight back and to protect his wife and child. If they wanted to practice a philosophy that would get them killed, then they could so long as he and his wife were left out of it. If James followed their philosophy, Lily and their kid would be dead. No chance. Besides he had protested more than once in the past, and nothing good had ever come out of those protests.

When the meeting was finally over after an hour with nothing really planned, much to the annoyance of James and others who wanted Dumbledore to actually prove to them he knew what he was doing to fight, James was about to leave and head back to have a talk with someone more intelligent than this bunch when he was stopped.

"James, could you please wait for a few minutes? I would like to talk with you," Dumbledore called out.

James cursed the old wizard angrily. He just wanted to get back to his wife and unborn child, and get away from morons like the Weasleys, and he wanted to talk to his wife urgently. Steeling himself for the encounter - James didn't doubt the old fool would lecture him about the use of force - he sat back down in his chair. To his surprise James wasn't the only one staying; the Longbottoms were here too. While he wasn't completely fond of Frank, James did respect him and his own wife, Alice. Alice Longbottom had been one of Lily's best friends at Hogwarts, and like Lily she was pregnant and had fought against Voldemort personally a few times.

Lily and James were suspicious about why Dumbledore seemed to not care about the fact he had two pregnant women in his little band, and why he didn't even try to stop them from fighting. He didn't actively encourage them to fight, but the fact was Voldemort seemed to appear from nowhere, and launched an attack with Lily and Alice nearby.

The Potters had spoken to Alice about it once since Frank was one of those people who respected Dumbledore enough to believe he was a great wizard but not a practical thinker in this war, and they didn't want their suspicions getting back to the old wizard. Fortunately Alice was worried as well.

James pushed those thoughts out of his mind - he was convinced by now that Dumbledore was trained in the mind arts - and focused instead on Lily and wanting to get back to her, and waited for the old fool to talk.

Dumbledore didn't begin with his usual pleasantries for a rare change. Instead he immediately got down to business, his face was grave. "I was hoping that Lily would've been here," he began, "but I'm afraid we shall have to speak about this now. I shall say this only once because the information is too sensitive."

"What is it Albus?" Frank asked.

Dumbledore took a deep breath like an actor taking a dramatic pause. "I am afraid Lord Voldemort is after both children born into your families," he said before adding, "I am sorry."

"Why is he after both children, that doesn't make any sense to me," James said, trying to hold back his fear. No wonder the bastard had zeroed in on him and Lily in the alley. He was after their child, the sick fuck.

Alice nodded in agreement. "Why would he want to kill our child," he waved a hand at herself and Frank, "and Lily and James's baby?"

"A prophecy was made some time ago. It said that the one to be born to parents who had defied Voldemort 3 times before would go on to have the power he didn't have," Dumbledore said gravely.

The Longbottoms were amazed but horrified. "Our baby could be the one to stop You Know Who?" Frank whispered in awe, something which sickened his wife, who elbowed him, and James who glared at him behind his back.

James couldn't believe it himself, and he was suspicious when he realised that Voldemort had fought both he and his wife and the Longbottoms 3 times over the past year. "When was this prophecy made?" he asked suspiciously. "Lily and I faced Voldemort only today, and Frank and Alice faced him the third time last week. When was this prophecy made?"

The Longbottoms began to see the sense of his questioning, and they didn't like the way the man whom they had both been brought up to admire looked uncomfortable. "Albus?" Alice prompted with her voice shaking.

"Tell us," Frank prompted.

Dumbledore sighed and he realised he was being cornered. "A year ago I heard the prophecy," he admitted.

"And you're only telling us this NOW!?"

* * *

Lily looked up startled when she heard the sound of her husband flooing into their temporary house. Lily had just been cooking to pass the time and to also give her husband something to eat when he returned, and while she hated the thought of being a mere housewife like Molly Weasley who believed that was all a wife should be, she knew that James deserved a good meal.

Regardless of knowing her husband was in the house, Lily still took out her wand and padded softly to the doorway. There was a good reason why she was cautious. Too many Death eaters had managed to break into houses through the floo connections and too many people had died as a result. It was just another example of how bad the magical world and the Ministry was getting and how well connected the Death eaters were if they could use the connections like that.

The moment she laid eyes on James she pointed her wand at his head. "Did you ever go on a date with Marlene McKinnon like Sirius Black dared you to go on?"

"No." James grinned at the memory of how he'd ignored the dare when they were 16-17 years old respectively.

Lily lowered the wand only slightly as another question came to mind. "In the tombs in Egypt, one of the curse breaker students with us tried to open a chest. What happened to him?"

James's grin disappeared. "He was melted because of pressurised salt acid."

Lily lowered the wand at last, and she grinned at her husband. The Potters were both satisfied with the answers though James hadn't asked any questions himself, but then he hadn't needed to. Her reactions to the answers was proof enough for her. The curse breaking answers were known only to them and the goblins, who wouldn't tell anyone anything about something like that if they were paid to.

"I've got something for you to eat," Lily said and she led her husband over to the kitchen table and she placed two hot plates of food onto the table. James tucked in, he was so hungry he couldn't believe it though he wanted desperately to tell his wife about what had happened. "The Order meeting was the same," he said without being prompted, "still the same endless and pointless debate about using force. Black was telling Molly Weasley that she had to face facts that we're losing this war, but I don't know if he only said that out of guilt for the number of people he and his bunch of friends had bullied who joined the Death eaters."

Lily made a face. "Maybe," she said. "What else happened?"

James took a deep breath. "Dumbledore asked me about you, but I told him you were resting after the attack. McGonagall sends her best wishes by the way, but that's not the worst of it. Dumbledore held me and the Longbottoms back. There was a prophecy made a year ago, that Dumbledore knew about, that said that a child born to parents who had fought and escaped Voldemort 3 times would have some power he didn't know and would defeat him. The Longbottom's child fits the bill. But ours do as well."

Lily could not believe it. "What? A prophecy, and let me guess Voldemort believes it?"

"Voldemort doesn't know the wording," James pointed out. "All he knows are a few lines. Apparently Dumbledore heard it, but a Death eater managed to learn the first few lines. I don't know what happened - why a Death eater was nearby, what Dumbledore was doing at the time, so don't ask. But he does believe it. Voldemort's like all those leaders in the muggle world who are obsessed with things like the occult, only in his case he knows what is real and what is just superstition. Dumbledore wouldn't tell us what the prophecy actually said either, he just summarised it for us."

Lily was silent, then she began to shake with anger. "You mean to tell me that all those times you and I faced that bastard for the last year, Dumbledore was encouraging it so then he could just have some secret weapon, an ace to use just the once and then discard without a care in the world?!" She shrieked with rage. James was just as angry, his retelling of what happened after the meeting and his wife's own temper stoking his own anger. But he knew he needed to keep a cooler head in the face of his wife's temper. But it was hard - the weapon his wife was talking about, the one Dumbledore wanted so badly to end the war, could very well be their son. "That's about it," he said.

Lily paced the room like an angry tigress. "I knew that old fool was keeping one too many secrets that he shouldn't have done," she snapped. "I didn't think he would be so callous to push a child into the role of some saviour. Who the hell gave it, and where the hell did Dumbledore hear in the first place?" James didn't reply. He didn't know.

Suddenly Lily whipped out her wand and began casting a few spells. James watched her in sudden worry. "What is it?"

Lily ignored him and didn't speak until she'd finished casting. There was a purple light that suddenly appeared on James's clothes that she quickly dispelled. "That should do for now," she remarked. "Sorry, I wanted to check to make sure there weren't listening charms on you, and there was. That light."

James gritted his teeth and asked himself if Dumbledore even knew he was making himself more and more unpopular. He sighed and looked his wife straight in the eye. "I'll keep watch on myself every time we meet him," he vowed. "But in the meantime I think we should rely on ourselves to make sure our child is safe."

Lily reflexively placed both of her hands on her pregnant belly as if she could protect her child herself just by posing like that. She sat down and looked at James. "What do you think we can do? Voldemort is hunting us down, and whether or not we believe in the prophecy or not there are others who do, Voldemort and Dumbledore are two of those people. I don't know if Frank or Alice believe in the prophecy or not, and to be honest I don't care."

"Do you think we should include them, make plans that could protect ourselves?"

Lily thought for a second. "We could. But they might want to depend on Dumbledore for help, I don't see how we can persuade them otherwise. We'll speak to them at some point, sound them out." Something occurred to Lily at that point. "I think we should also have the baby in a muggle hospital, mostly out of safety but also because I don't want our child to have a magical Britain citizenship, and I think we should get the goblins to help us with that angle."

Muggleborns who were born outside the influence of the Ministry were automatically chosen to attend Hogwarts. But with goblin help and having them born in muggle hospitals, first generation muggleborns could opt for their children to be educated abroad. It wasn't commonly done, but Lily and James had heard on the grapevine that more and more muggleborns were opting for that little loophole. The Ministry could stop it happening, but they doubted it would happen.

James's eyes widened. "Are you saying you want our baby to not go to Hogwarts?" Personally he didn't really care when he remembered his own experiences at the school, remembered being called 'mudblood' for the first time, how that disgusting name and the pureblood's disturbing attitude had followed him and other muggleborns throughout their Hogwarts years. He didn't want his son or daughter going through the same thing if he could help it.

"I don't want our baby to face Voldemort full stop, and if he does go to Hogwarts then he'll be in danger. You know Dumbledore, he might say he cares, but he doesn't seem to care about the welfare of the children under his care. I don't want our son to go through the same grief, only to endure worse than us. What would stop Voldemort or Dumbledore from causing trouble? Besides, in another country he could learn how to defend himself, and live peacefully for a time without constant pressure and attention, and I don't trust Dumbledore. Knowing now what he's been doing for the past year now makes sense to me, who's to say he won't push our child into dangerous situations that could see him get killed? No, James. I'm not having it. I don't care what the old bastard thinks."

Lily's mind was racing as a number of plans shot through her mind. Many of them would probably take time to really think through and had dozens of flaws, but with James's help and insight she should be able to come up with a good plan that would save their son.

By now the Potters had begun to accept the fact their child would probably have little choice but to be a key player in the war. They didn't like it but it was something they would probably have to accept. But Lily wasn't finished. "I think we should try to kill Voldemort ourselves," she added grimly, remembering the results of the scan she'd performed in the alley. "While you were fighting him, I scanned him and I found out what he'd done to himself."

James was about to cheer that at last they might be able to stop the war by unravelling the rituals Voldemort had used to make himself invincible, but the look on Lily's face stilled him. "What is it?"

Lily took a deep breath. "Voldemort created horcruxes, James. Plural. His soul is literally in tatters from being torn apart god knows how many times. Its hanging by threads. It's a wonder he's still alive and sane, more or less sane anyway," she added after a second's thought, "but what I can't understand is why he would depend on horcruxes for immortality."

James was equally surprised by the news. He almost laughed. Horcruxes were one of the biggest jokes in curse breaker circles, though in other circles were a serious threat since many dark witches and wizards had decided ripping their souls would make them immortal. No one knew who had created them first, there were stories of soul fragments during the times of the druids, but their common use occurred in Ancient Egypt when stupid wizards in the courts of the pharaohs had been ordered to find a way to make their rulers immortal. There were even cruder examples in places like Australia, Africa, Peru, Malaysia and America where the ancient natives of those countries had studied magic. The horcrux was the end result. It was also a trap. The druids and the Ancient Egyptians had quickly worked out that when you split the soul you made it vulnerable and easy to destroy. It was like a burglar getting into a house and unlocking a bedroom window from the inside only to be caught because they'd left a clue behind. But in the case of the horcrux, if you had one of them belonging to a pharaoh or a common witch or wizard then you had a way to drain both the fragment and the individual of their magical power.

As curse breakers Lily and James rarely had a week when they never had to deal with them. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Persia, Pakistan and even places in China along with others were littered with the disgusting things. And they always drained them of their magic to preserve the treasure they were preserved inside. Soul fragments needed a vessel to house them, like the human body housed a soul to balance the boundaries between the spirit and the physical form. The goblins hated the things because so many priceless treasures had been lost because they were either destroyed by accident over the centuries, or idiots had believed in the dark arts books that described how to destroy a horcrux, where they would have to destroy the fragment and the object that housed it with a killing curse or something just as powerful. While it was theoretically possible for someone to feel true remorse for the soul fragment to reunite with the main part of the soul, it had never actually happened before. Lily and James both knew better than to expect remorse from someone like Voldemort. Killing him would be a mercy - for the people he'd murdered over the years.

Lily and James had learnt about horcruxes during their training. They had been taught the specifics of the horcrux and the dangers of using the things, but also how to safely deal with them with the help of a ritual. Contrary to what some people might imagine the horcruxes didn't give people immortality - the people who'd created those ancient horcruxes over the centuries were proof it didn't work, and yet they still found them. A horcrux was just basically an echo of the main soul, but a powerful one and when the main body and soul died out the horcrux was diminished. If Voldemort lost his life now the creation of so many horcruxes would probably go on, but in an equal diminished state. Lily and James had performed the ritual many times in the past, and while they were prepared to deal with Voldemort to give their baby a chance to live, there was one tiny problem.

"We can't perform the ritual, not without a soul piece belonging to him," James stated the obvious. "Besides, if we were to use one we'd need to know more about who Voldemort was before he became a dark wizard. For all we know his name could be Ben Sutton, or something."

"I know. But I was thinking that if we can perform the ritual with Voldemort nearby-"

James nodded as his mind picked up on the thread Lily had left off on. "Then we can still have a piece of soul to work with, but the problem is I don't remember during our training that that was possible. And there's another thing - how do we know where Voldemort will be? We can't carry the tools needed for the ritual around with us, and hope for an attack. Voldemort rarely leads the attacks himself unless he's sure he can win."

Lily agreed with the logic. She went silent and then her heart sank. "James, we might have no choice but to hope our baby isn't the child," she whispered, feeling bad for saying such things. "You know how he's always putting pureblood ideals first, lets hope he goes after Alice and Frank."

It was an awful thing to say, and neither Lily or James were stupid enough to believe that maybe the Longbottoms felt the same way and were saying the same things in their own home. If they were then neither Potter could blame them.

"You know that Voldemort might not care," James pointed out though he felt the same thing. "He might decide to simply kill us and our babies just so then he could ensure his own safety in the long run. And if Dumbledore tries to influence more parents to have children in the same manner as us, making parents fight that monster 3 times, then Voldemort can do the same thing over and over again until Dumbledore realises its hopeless and the prophecy just isn't going to work."

"I still believe the old fool waited after a year to tell us," Lily growled. "I wonder why he involved us."

"I think he was desperate. There aren't that many women in his order that he could sacrifice for his 'greater good' and there are plenty of people out there who hate and fear Voldemort, but they won't fight him. He claims that those who have thrice defied Voldemort would fit some of the criteria, but the problem is unless he got Molly and Arthur Weasley to have a kid in the middle of a war, and facing that snake faced piece of shit, he would have to depend on others. Lets face it - not many people would be in situations where Voldemort would attack. It wouldn't be difficult for him to set someone up to do all that."

Lily shook her head at the cold bloodedness of Dumbledore's scheme, but she also had to hide her admiration for the scale of it. "Did he say who made the prophecy?"

"No. I did try to press him, but he refused to talk."

Lily gave a derogatory snort in her mouth. "Surprise, surprise." She had never had a great opinion about divination. The subject had always been a crappy one at Hogwarts, in fact it wasn't even taught at the school. But Lily had never believed it possible to tell the future by reading tea leaves. In her mind the future was something that was constantly shifting beyond the extent of the human imagination to work out. It figured supposedly intelligent wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort would believe in something so stupid, and waste time expending energy trying to fulfil it.

James stood up and walked over to his wife and pulled her into a hug. "I think we should try the ritual on Voldemort, but I also think we should try and find a place to live. Get away from Godric's hollow, and if the ritual fails we think of something else."

He felt her nod into his chest. She agreed with his plan, and she pulled back so their eyes were separated by only a distance of inches. "James, I also think we should be prepared for the worst," she said.

James felt as if someone was walking over his grave. But Lily had spent the past few hours in the library reading the books that were collected there to gather dust and read some of the books she'd kept for herself when they'd been moved here after the second meeting with Voldemort, and she had learnt something interesting. She outlined a plan for James and the more he listened the more he became fascinated and happy. James had many doubts about the ritual working on Voldemort's soul piece rather than a genuine horcrux, but if what Lily was telling him was true then they could still help their son after they died, but they hoped it wouldn't come to that.

* * *

Lily looked adoringly at the little baby in her arms. Harry Potter was a beautiful baby, only a few months old after being born in a hospital in Liverpool, and already the boy had messy black hair - inherited from his father, and his mother's green eyes. Harry didn't know how cruel the world was, he seemed content to eat, sleep, shit himself, cry, and laugh. Lily and James had gotten their wish of having Harry born outside the magical world, but the Longbottoms had had their own baby. Neville Frank Longbottom had been born in St. Mungo's.

Dumbledore was not happy about where Harry was born, and both Potters refused to even take their son to the Order meetings that still took place. The old man's interest in their son was unhealthy. They were still in Godric's hollow, but now they were under the protection of the Fidelius charm. Lily had to admit it was a good idea, but the dangers were too great. What made it worse was that their secret keeper was also protecting the Longbottoms.

Peter Pettigrew wasn't the person Lily would've chosen as Secret Keeper, but the Longbottoms had agreed with Dumbledore when the old wizard claimed no one would expect Peter to be given such an important role.

Lily couldn't understand her friend sometimes. Alice was like her, desperate for the other one to be saved to gave her own child the chance to live. Thinking of Alice made Lily upset because their friendship had taken a battering during the final stages of pregnancy. They'd rarely met and they both saw in each others eyes the wish they hoped the other's child would be the one in the prophecy, though James had made a point by saying that perhaps Voldemort would simply come after both of them and kill them without a care in the world.

That was one reason she was concerned by the stance of having a the same person as keeper. It was too dangerous. Pettigrew was a mediocre wizard. His skills lay in potions only, that was it. He was useless when it came to duelling and his spellwork was dismal. Against a wizard like Voldemort he was hopeless.

While she disliked Black and Lupin, the former because of his immature streak and the latter because of his inability to move on from his 'oh, I'm a werewolf, woe is me, I can never have a life like others' attitude, she would have preferred them to Pettigrew and she would have been happier with someone like McGonagall. But like with many things Dumbledore had ignored them. Both Potters had refused to allow the old wizard anywhere near their son while the Longbottoms allowed him access to Neville. They still hadn't seen that it was a bad idea, not when the old man seemed determined to turn one of their children into a weapon.

They didn't know what he would do, but felt that he wouldn't be able to do anything if one of them was there to stay near Harry. And then there was something else. Dumbledore had pressured both the Potters and the Longbottoms to write their wills up, complete with a list of guardians in case something did happen to Peter that forced the man to give up their locations.

Dumbledore had commented that Lily and James should consider the Dursleys as guardians for Harry. Both Potters had refused, the memory of what had happened the last time they'd met the Dursleys clear in their minds, and both of them wondered if Dumbledore wanted their child dead even if Neville was the supposed chosen one. If so then he was going the right way about it.

Lily had not seen her sister and her fucked up pig of a brother in law since their parent's funeral. The Death eaters had killed their families, though why the Dursleys had been left alone Lily did not know. Lily was certain it was Snape who had told his master where their families were, and he wouldn't be surprised if that were true. But she didn't want her son to live anywhere near the Dursleys. Dumbledore seemed to believe that if she and James forgave Petunia and Vernon all the enmity would disappear like steam evaporating from a kettle, but her sister's hatred of magic was much too deep, and Dumbledore didn't understand it and probably never would.

Petunia had always been jealous of Lily, though the redhead wished she would grow up and make something of her life rather than wallow in her growing hatred. Petunia had brains and talents, Lily knew that and she had tried to encourage it to stop the older woman from constantly following her like a fucking groupie, hoping to catch a bit of Lily's effortless glory, but Petunia hadn't and she had let whatever talent existed in her wither and atrophy like a dying tree that had simply given up on life after giving it all it had.

Lily knew that Petunia had been contacting Dumbledore to allow her attendance at Hogwarts, but because Petunia was a muggle and couldn't practice magic she was denied. That and their parent's pride in her grades and what she was learning at Hogwarts even if they lacked the understanding of what she was learning, had done little to help her relationship with Petunia, who had just stewed in her jealousy.

Lily grimaced as she thought about what had come next, a match made in heaven. She didn't understand what her sister saw in Vernon, and before they'd died neither had their parents.

Vernon was a bore. He was so piggy, greedy and morbidly obese she was surprised the sun could come out. His prejudices about people who weren't white British made her sick, but he hated anything abnormal, so really he and Petunia were a good match, though she felt her sister could have done much much better.

Lily was the epitome of abnormality in their eyes, and so was James and so they didn't get along. Lily had often wondered what her sister had told him about her, but now she didn't care. Worse, Petunia and Vernon were ignorant of magic in so many ways despite their awareness of it's existence. They didn't realise that raising a child would mean many counts of accidental magic, and they would probably slap Harry or beat him just to stop him being a 'freak' if he was raised by them and despite growing up with a witch, Petunia had never bothered to gain any insight into what caused accidental magic.

She would probably slap and verbally abuse Harry if Dumbledore had his way, and her baby boy was to be raised by them. But Vernon was more extreme - she still remembered having to visit Petunia to wish her well and to tell her sister that it would be best to leave. Lily had been pregnant at the time, and she had needed to banish the fat pig into a wall to stop him from 'doing his duty, by riding the world of freaks.' But Lily was furious; she'd woken the pig up and used curse after curse on him. None of them were harmful in the long run, they were just painful, but since Petunia and Vernon both had medieval attitudes and mindsets when it came to magic, they wouldn't know that.

Lily had hated having to hurt Vernon, but she was protecting her baby. Why should she care if she was hurting a threat? The only problem was the Death eaters caused more pain for muggles, and so Lily found it hard not to think that maybe she was no better than her enemies.

No. She was better. Lily knew Vernon, knew he was a brute with a lack of common sense and decency; in that case he was a good match for Petunia. She had told the two muggles that if they wanted to be killed by Voldemort, then so be it. She warned them the Dark Lord wouldn't give a shit if they tried to tell him they didn't know where the Potters were.

Then she and James had left and she hadn't heard from her twisted relatives again. Whether Vernon would heed her warnings or just ignore them since he believed his family were safe regardless, Lily didn't know. Probably the latter - Vernon was so arrogant and didn't realise that when someone like Lord Voldemort was around, no-one was safe. Vernon would probably think he could boss a 'freak' like Voldemort around without realising the Dark Lord would kill him and his family.

Hadn't the fat pig been watching the news? Lily knew that while the Ministry had managed to mitigate the worst of the Death eater's activities like wanton murder, torture, rape and kidnapping, some things had slipped through the cracks, but if Petunia hadn't seen the signs and realised what was going on in reality, then there was truly no hope for her.

Petunia was a mother now herself, Lily was aware of it, but she hadn't met her nephew. But she pitied him because while the kid was innocent now under Petunia's care he'd be smothered and molly coddled, and with Vernon as a dad he'd probably grow up into a thug.

Dumbledore had also given the Potters and the Longbottoms a copy of a book about Blood magic. That had been a surprise for the Potters, and it made them suspect Dumbledore was deliberately trying to find a way for Harry to be given to Petunia.

Blood magic was one of those forms of magic which had so much potential, yet the Ministry of Magic in all its awe inspiring wisdom didn't have any qualms about banning study of the magic.

Lily had already encountered different forms of magic which likewise were banned by the Ministry simply because they didn't understand it. She'd been seeing it in tombs all over the world. Besides she read it anyway, after scanning the book and seeing if there was a compulsion charm on it to make them read it, and to use some of the magic to help safeguard their family. There was such a spell on the book, and the utter shamelessness of Dumbledore showed its ugly head again.

The blood magic book joined another book Lily had in her own collection which she felt could help her save Harry and protect him. She was curious why Dumbledore had given her a book so openly, but she quickly learnt about a sacrificial ritual that if powered by blood magic would be powerful enough to prevent her son being hit by a killing curse. While she was surprised Dumbledore would openly give her such a book with such a ritual, the compulsion charm made her realise that Dumbledore had already decided that she and Alice, not to mention James and Frank were expendable. She and James had not told Alice any of their suspicions because of the rift that had grown between them. Alice and Frank had decided to distance themselves from the Potters, though they didn't understand why.

Lily and James had also actively stopped attending the Order meetings since they didn't want to spend too much time in Dumbledore's company without their son. Besides when they had attended a meeting with their son, Molly Weasley had tried to offer 'advice' that came across as opinionated and patronising.

Weasley had also hinted she didn't think Lily and James should be parents, and Lily had almost lashed out at the arrogant bitch for giving an opinion she really shouldn't have. Not for the first time Lily wondered what Molly actually did for the Order, and she knew her husband sometimes asked himself the same question, though Lily always asked why was Molly and Arthur special.

Lily had only seen the other woman fight just once, and while the woman was good with magic, she had gone up to some of the Death eaters that she'd bound to the ground.

She had leaned in, hands on hips, and snapped, "What do you think you were doing?" The Death eaters hadn't been intimidated by the fat middle aged witch with dull red hair. They'd laughed instead, at least until Lily had fired a curse at one of them when one had tried to escape. Molly had shouted at Lily, but she had met her match that day, and after that the enmity between them had grown.

While Arthur was a nice man and easier to speak to than his wife, Lily and James did not like the way the man spoke to them and about muggles as though they were animals to be gawped at in a zoo. Learning to look after Harry had been tricky, but they'd managed it in the end and now they were learning how to take care of the boy with a little help and advice from Poppy Pomfrey; the school healer's experience might by more geared to healing students who'd fallen from their broomsticks, but she wasn't stupid when it came to basic baby care. Plus she wasn't as critical as Molly Weasley, and healers had a thing called healer-patient confidentiality, and so Poppy couldn't tell Dumbledore anything that had nothing to do with him.

During the time where she and James spent their days taking Harry out into the muggle world - it was a risk, but the Potters didn't want to spend every waking moment cooped up inside a cottage everyday doing the same things and wondering they would even be alive the next day, and besides if she and her husband were to die then she wanted to spend as much time with her son as she could. Their safety was still a risk because Voldemort could launch an attack anytime on the city itself.

The Potters also bought newspapers during those little days out. Harry enjoyed them and would laugh out loud when he saw ducks, cars, trains, dogs and cats, oblivious to the hell going on because of a handful of fanatics who didn't realise the harm their little war was causing. Harry was taken everywhere. They went on theme park rides, to museums, to the zoo and the sea life centre and they went on heritage railways, anything to make their baby laugh.

And in all that time Lily and James were putting the final phases of their plans into operation. Together they both transferred small amounts of their memories and knowledge into Harry's mind, always aware of the potential brain damage their son might receive if they poured too much in. When they were finished, Lily would have to place a time lock on the memories so then they would open when Harry was old enough to understand what was in his mind. Lily called it his inheritance. It was more precious than gold, silver, books or whatever trinkets there were in Gringotts.

* * *

October, 1981.

Lily's eyes watered as she stood over her baby boy who was crying his heart out, the smart little boy already knew that something terrible was happening, but she was thankful he didn't know that Lord Voldemort was inside the house. Somehow she wasn't surprised Pettigrew had betrayed them to the monster, and she doubted that Alice or Frank were safe either. In her heart and mind she cursed the Death eater who had told Voldemort about the prophecy which must have been made in a public place, Dumbledore for pushing her and James into one dangerous mess after another with Voldemort bearing down on them all the time. Lastly she cursed Pettigrew for handing both families on a plate to that monster, and then Voldemort himself for ripping away her life and her husband's from her son, and having more children who could've gone onto doing great things.

Lily was using a brush to lightly paint blood runes onto her son's face, though there were also a few runes in parselmagic. Lily had discovered her ability which was considered another dark art when she was in Egypt and India. While she was there she had spent a lot of time with other parselmouths who'd taught her a great deal about the so called dark art, and they'd given her books written to what for others were squiggles but to parselmouths they were as easy to read as a picture book. Lily had spent a lot of her time experimenting with both parselmagic and blood magic to see if the two could be used in tandem with the necessary sacrifice, and while the two were separated by a great deal there were similarities between them to make it work. The good news was parselmagic and blood magic sacrifice rituals worked the same way. But it was Lily's hope the two would be so powerful the backwash might kill Voldemort, though those horcruxes would make it difficult for the bastard to die.

Despite the danger and James yelling for her to take their son and escape so then he could grow up with just one parent in his life, Lily had already tried to see if they could escape, and she was furious when she found a number of spells on the house which prevented anyone from getting out of the house. A quick scan had indicated it was another blood magic spell, but it wasn't from either her or James. Lily had realised that it did come from someone, someone unexpected.

Voldemort himself.

No, Dumbledore couldn't have done. But it was true because she had cast the spell that would narrow in on the witch or wizard the blood magic was drawing its strength from, and it was from Voldemort himself, but had he done it? It seemed a little extreme for a Dark wizard like Voldemort to use magic like that. Burning with curiosity, Lily held her son tightly to her chest when the sound of that dreaded incantation spoken by that cold, high voice that sounded like it was coming from the arctic, "Avada kedavra," and she didn't hear James's voice. The only thing she heard a lifeless thump as James's corpse fell to the ground.

Lily cried out in horror as she used her back to shelter Harry from the exploding door when Voldemort used a curse on the door. Harry cried out with her, their voices drowned when there was nothing but silence behind them. Lily quickly put her baby into the cot, and she stood protectively in front of it. She couldn't help but shudder when she took in the sight of the figure in the doorway. Wrapped in a black cloak with a cowl covering his head, Voldemort didn't look out of place with all the muggle kids and adults out there trick or treating. The only problem was this horror was real.

Voldemort strode into the room, his expression inscrutable as his cold red slit eyes.

"Stand aside, girl," he demanded.

"Wait!" Lily said. "Why did you use blood magic to seal us inside this house?"

Voldemort had never given anyone the impression he was anything but confident in himself, but Lily's unexpected question took him by surprise. "What did you say?" he hissed.

Pleased her question had distracted him momentarily, Lily went on so she could find an opportunity to complete the ritual, "Blood magic. Do you really think I'd stay in this house where me and my son would be killed by you without trying to escape? Please, give me more credit than that. I din't care what Dumbledore might think; my husband and I had no intention of being murdered by you and not be there for our child. Why did you use blood magic?"

Voldemort glared at her. "I didn't," he said. Using his wand he cast a number of spells over himself, muttering in latin the necessary spells to detect blood magic on his person. That gave Lily plenty of time to record the last few minutes of her life along with a quick and hurried message to her son. She basically told him that she would always love him, but he would need to learn how to survive in order to fight this monster. She didn't close the spell off though she set the time lock to seal the memories and knowledge she and James had passed onto Harry to open in 5-6 years. She didn't have a lot of time to really concentrate on the timing. While she and James had hoped that Harry would live with them and the time lock would open up the knowledge they had in his head, they had hoped it would give him some help when he went to school.

Now it was his only chance to survive. She also cast a few other spells on him while Voldemort was busy.

Finally the Dark lord finished, and he looked furious though the cowl he had covering his head managed to hide his features, but she could see the way his slit like eyes became even more slitted, and his lipless mouth moved as his teeth ground furiously. "I did not use blood magic myself, but someone else did. Who was it, girl?"

She had no desire of telling him. Instead Lily sneered at him, hoping to make him angry enough. "You think I'd tell you? I have a good idea who it was, but since you want to murder me and my son, I'm not going to tell you."

Voldemort remembered why he had come in the first place at the mention of the boy. He pointed his wand dangerously at Lily, all the while thinking that he would solve the mystery of who had used blood magic to seal the house in the first place. He wasn't sure whether to be angry or thankful to whomever it was that two of his biggest annoyances and the little brat who could be destined to be his downfall would be trapped in this house, or furious someone had managed to steal some of his blood to power such a spell.

But that was a matter for later. "Move aside, you silly girl!"

"No!" And with her head raised high, Lily Potter spat out her last defiance. "You'll have to kill me!"

Lily didn't even close her eyes when the bright green light and the rushing sound of the killing curse streaked towards her and hit her in the chest with the force of an express train. As life left her body, she wished her son all the best in the world. "Goodbye Harry, James, I love you both," she thought to herself when the curse impacted on her chest.

And then Lily Potter was dead.

* * *

Lord Voldemort looked down almost regretfully at the dead and still body of Lily Potter. While he and his followers openly hated mudbloods, and everything they stood for despite his own heritage he didn't let that mindless hatred stop him from admiring some mudbloods and their talents.

Lily Potter was one of a dozen who had won his respect. She was skilled in healing, curse breaking, charms, potions, and a host of other branches of magic.

It was just a pity.

Voldemort wasn't so hypocritical that he wouldn't have made an exception for the Potters to join him in his ranks, and he even entertained the fantasy of Lily Potter and Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy carving a path of murder and brutality through the muggle world; he had several female Death eaters in his ranks, and the inclusion of Lily would have made her stand out.

His followers might believe that he would never induct muggleborns into the ranks never mind the Inner circle, and that was true enough but truthfully Voldemort needed a lot of talent in his army if it was to survive, and Lily and James Potter had both impressed him. It took a lot to impress someone like Voldemort.

Unfortunately, it had never happened, the Potters had not seen sense by joining him, and Voldemort knew it would never happen now.

It was truly regrettable. From what his spies had claimed the Potters weren't the typical members of the order. What made it more tragic was that prophecy. Voldemort didn't believe in prophecies, he hadn't even taken divination during his time at Hogwarts because he had always considered the subject to be rubbish, but he hadn't wanted to take anything to chance.

He was still surprised by how easy this all was, in fact he had expected more from Dumbledore besides a fidelius charm, the secrets of the locations of the Longbottoms and the Potters been given to a single person. At the time he had been suspicious that he was wandering into a trap, so he had spent months trying to learn the truth. But he hadn't found any hint of a trap, so he had decided to attack both families on the same night. He had decided to go alone, prepared for anything. But he had been surprised by the revelation of the blood ward. Why would Dumbledore be setting up blood wards with his, Lord Voldemort's, blood? Was he trying to trap him with the Potters? Or was there something more to it?

No matter.

He walked over to the cot, wand in hand.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was pacing his office, pleased that his plans had come about. Yes, it was a true shame that Lily and James had needed to die, but it was for the Greater good of course. While some people would never understand the concept of the Greater good and the sometimes terrible things needed to be done in its name, it always worked out for all in the end.

The old wizard had been pacing his office for the past hour now, his mind racing as he considered the recent events. While Lily and James had needed to die in order for their son to be marked by Voldemort, he regretted the necessity of their deaths. While he advocated muggles and muggleborns to a certain point, he believed that if Lily and James had been allowed to live rather than simply force them both into the gauntlet, they would have gone on to having loads more children; granted they did not trust him, though Dumbledore truly had no idea why that was, but at least with them having powerfully magical children, they would at least have proven themselves worthy of being a wizarding family.

Alas, they were both dead now.

Dumbledore was just disappointed by their plot to send their son away when he was needed in Britain. Young Harry was safe and sound in the care of his mother's aunt - yes, Lily had told him that the woman was jealous and hated everything magical, but surely she was exaggerating? Yes, maybe Petunia Dursley would resent Harry, but she wouldn't hurt him. Surely not? But it had taken a lot of time and imagination when he'd found out they planned to use a port key to send Harry away to some other part of the world where he would never have been able to fulfil his destiny. It never crossed Dumbledore's mind that the destiny he had chosen for the boy was just that, a destiny not of Harry's choice.

Dumbledore thought back on the recent months of the war, thought about the spell he had needed to subtly introduce into the house without the Potters knowledge, and it had taken him a lot of effort to plant it somewhere they'd never suspect, but he had learnt enough from it to consider it to be worthwhile. While he had no real idea of what the Potters had been doing for the last few months while he had been trying to find a spell they couldn't detect - Dumbledore really disliked it when people wised up to his methods and therefore learnt to conceal their secrets, since as the Leader of the Light he had the right to know everything going on - the war had taken a good deal of his effort.

Now it was over.

But Dumbledore didn't really have much hope, though the peace time would finally help the magical world, which was in danger of spilling out into the muggle world. Dumbledore had no real idea what would've happened if the muggles finally learnt that the magical world existed, but he knew it wouldn't be good. Wizards had hidden for good reason after all, but the modern muggles were an unknown quantity.

Many countries magical communities were still strictly isolationist from the muggles, and that was a pity because Dumbledore truly believed the Wizarding world could learn a great deal about them.

No, what Dumbledore was worried about were the Death eaters. Contrary to what some in the Order had believed, Dumbledore knew that some of them were irredeemable, some of them like Bellatrix Lestrange - a powerful witch that had tragically fallen into the Dark - should spend the rest of their lives in prison. Dumbledore had no problem with that, but what he didn't want was for any of them to be given the Dementors kiss. In fact it was Dumbledore's hope that in the future, when Voldemort was finally ended, then they would see the error of their ways.

Now, while he waited for the ten years for Harry to grow up and to become eligible for a place at Hogwarts, he had a lot of work to do.

* * *

Author's note - Please leave positive feedback, please tell me what you think. Also, when you read this story do not leave reviews that seem to be a draft for all reviews - it makes it sound like you haven't read a single line. No offence - its just really really not useful. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2 An Ordinary Day

**Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, just this story.**

 **An Ordinary Day.**

* * *

Harry looked around the street, eyes looking for targets. It was busy and bustling but that was typical for rush hour. In the past this would be a bit of a mess since he had only just become aware of his heritage after his mother's use of the ritual which allowed her to transfer the knowledge she and Harry's father had gained over the years was locked away in Harry's mind.

Escaping the Dursleys had been a big test to prove just how easily he could slip in and out without being seen. It hadn't been easy since the Dursleys had been incredibly extreme in keeping him locked away in the hope that they could stop him learning magic and keeping him hopeless and abused to the point where they thought they would get rid of his magic so he'd spend the rest of his life hopeless on the streets, but ever since his inheritance, as Harry called it which was understandable and reasonable since it had been made by his parents and left to him, came to mind, he knew that living in the house was wrong, so he'd planned and plotted an escape. It was both hard and yet pathetically easy - that was the problem with muggles and Albus Dumbledore; they might have claimed to have thought of everything that could've gone wrong, but something always slipped through the cracks.

The Dursleys had stupidly believed their own propaganda, that if they kept him locked away in that fucking cupboard under the stairs, then he would never learn he was a wizard. It had never entered their minds that they were signing their own death warrants. Harry had returned not long after his escape, and he had made the Dursleys understand their stupid mistake.

And then he had made Voldemort learn from his mistakes. Honestly, using something like horcruxes, splitting his own soul into pieces and using them for immortality! His followers hadn't been any better. Quickly shaking off the memories - too many of them were bad enough being in the back of his mind, he didn't want them clouding his judgement in the present - Harry looked around the street, comfortable and confident in the notice-me-not charm he had placed on himself to keep him anonymous, for a respectable looking mark.

It didn't take him long - that was the problem with 21st century culture; everyone now had access to high standards of health, education, work that paid a good deal more than it had in the past, so everyone was able to earn more and spend more unless they were cheapskates. But for a seasoned thief, especially one like Harry who had been a pickpocket, bank robber, burglar etc for a long time now, it was a paradise looking for someone to become his mark.

The mark today that he chose was a man. Early 50s walking through the shops, wearing a black suit and an expensive looking suit at that. Harry knew he was one of the richest people in the area, the suit he was wearing probably cost more than an average University or college fee, shoes made to order, not showing any signs of scuffing or dirt, like they were dust proof. Everyone could see the bugger was loaded - he was wearing an expensive wrist watch. Harry followed him but at a distance, watching as the man splurged out and bought some really expensive designer gear, and Harry manoeuvred himself around so he could reach out using his legilimency to learn everything he could about him; there was a chance he could rob the man later, but it might be wiser to just pick his pocket for the time being.

Ideas of how he could pick his man's pocket went through his mind, as a wizard who had inherited the knowledge and experience of both his parents before being educated in Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though his reviews of the place weren't the biased crap most students that went to that school were far from wonderful.

But as a wizard, Harry's choices and options for robbing someone was nearly infinite. He could do things the muggle way, something he had been trained to be since he didn't want to be dependent on magic for everything, but there were times when his uses of magic were needed and necessary.

At least when he was free without fear of being caught. After deciding to just use the muggle alternative for this one, though he cast a notice me not spell on himself so he could get closer without being seen - the muggle's CCTV technology was a problem for seasoned pickpockets since all the authorities needed was to track down the perpetrator after getting a rough idea of the time the theft was even carried out - but they weren't a problem for a wizard. But still, cursing how the muggles were becoming more paranoid as time wore on, Harry kept his distance while keeping a close watch on the man in front of him, following him from one shop to another, waiting for the right opportunity to pick his pocket. From his legilimency probe, he had found out the man was going to be heading for the Underground soon enough, but he would need to buy a ticket and he would keep his wallet not in the inner pocket of the coat covering his suit like a more security conscious man would, believing himself to be above the need for keeping security since he was richer than many of the other people in the city.

Harry disliked the arrogance, it reminded him too much of the arrogant pureblood bastards who had made his and other muggleborns a living hell simply because they could. But in this case it would work to Harry's advantage.

Oxford Circus was one of the busiest stations on the Underground network, and it was always a packed crowd and a challenge even for a wizard to metaphorically use their magic to commit a theft. Harry flashed his oyster card and proceeded down to the Central Line platforms, knowing precisely where the mark was going to be in the next 10 minutes after he'd purchased his ticket from upstairs. Unsurprised by the sight of the transport police standing around to maintain order - the London Underground had its faults, but crime was always a constant problem for the tube network, so these guys were always on the alert in case of trouble, and keeping out of sight of the security cameras which he knew the position of like the back of his hand, well kept in mind since he always scanned the areas he was in for CCTV observation so he could better avoid them all.

While pretending to idly read his newspaper, Harry smiled to himself when he saw his mark looking around the platform, a look of disgust on his face, though Harry had no idea if that disgust had anything to do with the crowd on the platform which were talking over each other, while they waited for the train to arrive.

Harry's heart was beating a little in his chest. He had no intention of being on the train for long, he would only be on it for a stop or two before he got off and left the mark to himself, though he would have the knowledge of the man's security at home so then in the future, one day, he would return to burgle the man. Harry pushed the crowd gently out of the way, not bothering to hide his attempt - the notice-me-not spell worked well enough, but the spell could be broken if he attracted undue attention, but Harry had learnt from experience if he was careful and was gentle then no one would realise they had a wizard in their midst.

Slowly lowering the newspaper in his hands, he used it to create a shield as he walked close to the man when the train came roaring through the tunnel and came to a halt. Using the mark's distraction, Harry slipped his right index and middle fingers into his coat pocket. It was a pity Harry couldn't forcibly slow down the flow of time, because if he could then maybe the man would not need to move towards the opened doors. It was a risk he had to take, he reflected darkly as he followed the man with his hand still tucked away into the man's pocket, feeling the wallet but unable to move his hand to seize it as they both got onto the train. Shit.

With no choice but to follow him, Harry just gently increased his grip on the wallet. This was his richest mark of the week so far, and Harry had no intention of letting him go.

Harry stayed with the man as they stepped onto the train, but fortunately there weren't any seats despite the rich twats' attempts to find one. While the bloke moaned and groaned at the lack of seating room under his breath, Harry took a silent breathe and pinched the edge of the wallet and gently slid it out of the mark's coat pocket. Using the newspaper to maintain the shield, Harry put the wallet inside his own coat. Moving away from the mark, Harry began to relax a little bit more, though he kept a close watch on the man just in case the bloke noticed him and his wallet being missing. He didn't really notice the rest of the crowd packed in the train - there were so many faces they began to look alike, but he saw two middle aged women yapping about some inane thing that made no difference.

There were a group of teenage boys trying to impress a smaller group of girls who didn't look impressed by their efforts, an office worker who was busy reading a book, looking bored and tired. Next to office worker was a young woman close to Harry's age who was listening to music with an unfocused look in her eyes. Harry closed his eyes for a second to recover from being so close to another person and entering the personal space of said person. He perused his newspaper to pass the time, and while he did he smiled to himself when the mark suddenly made a noise of disbelief. Harry idly looked up and saw that the mark was digging through his pockets, shouting that someone had nicked his wallet.

Harry went back to reading his newspaper as though the incident was already out of his mind, indifferent to the man's plight.

But he couldn't get the man's increasingly panicky voice out of his mind as the former mark complained about not being able to find his wallet, that he'd been robbed. He felt no sympathy for the man - if you dressed rich, then you should expect to become a target of a pickpocket.

* * *

Getting off at Holborn, Harry followed the stream of weary people out of the station before he found a public lavatory. Crinkling his nose at the stench he found an empty cubicle and locked the door before he went through his pockets, put on a pair of latex gloves and found the three wallets he'd nicked from the three marks he'd had today including the one he'd just taken on the Underground.

The first two wallets had either £40 or £60, and Harry left the receipts or whatever kind of crap was left behind. He wasn't really bothered by the cards in the wallet though he'd come across some of the bars and clubs advertised on them. The wall where he'd taken the £60 had cards for a multitude of strip clubs and even a brothel. Harry had found dozens of wallets with that kind of thing in them, sometimes they were owners or even bouncers. Harry sometimes noted the brothels and their addresses so then he could visit them himself in case he wanted to partake in the entertainment. Sex was something Harry had no problem getting with that kind of resource, but the third one had a few surprises. It was stuffed full of receipts from dozens of shops, so that shouldn't make it too hard for the police to track down when they came to return the wallet to its rightful owner. But he also found something else apart from the cash.

Harry pulled out 3 colourful pills with hearts stamped into them. He only took the cash. Wallets were like houses, phones, cars; they showed off the kind of life a person had. Harry counted the cash in the third wallet, which amounted to £309. Not a bad haul, £409 in total. He could have taken the credit cards, but he never did since it was dangerous because as soon as the marks realised their wallets had been stolen they would begin raising all kinds of hell just to get them back. Harry put the money into his inner pocket, and focused his remaining attention on the wallets themselves, and then started cleaning off the fingerprints he'd left on them. He would find a post box or something, and then the police could return them to their owners using the credit card numbers. That rich tosser would probably be arrested for possession of drugs, but that wasn't Harry's problem. He had done his bit for heroics and was never going to do it again if he could help it.

* * *

After leaving the public lavatory, Harry headed back for the station, this time canceling his notice-me-not spell. As far as he was concerned, today was over since he'd finished work and gotten his pay for the day. There were bustling crowds of tourists, babbling in their own languages, but Harry ignored them. He'd burgled and picked the pockets of numerous tourists in his time, but as he stood waiting in line for the station to head down to the trains he studied the numerous tourists and Londoners. They probably had £200,000 pounds between them, it was that big a crowd. Harry eyed them gently for a moment, knowing that this sort of chance came every single day of the week with the number of people that came to visit the capital of Britain. Harry had picked the pockets of dozens of tourists in his time, but today he simply wasn't concerned with it though he decided to make some effort to pick someone's pocket anyway.

Stepping closer to the crowd, using the newspaper he was still carrying as a shield again, Harry crept up close to one of the tourists, but his eyes scanned each one of them for a sign of where their cash was. It might be considered greedy, but Harry couldn't help it. Tourists weren't a great guarantee but that didn't mean he shouldn't try once or twice - he could count on both hands how many times he had succeeded and failed of making a good score with tourists. Some of them carried hundreds of banknotes and spent their time spending every moment. Others just looked around and not bought a thing.

Harry hid a smile when he saw one of the tourists, a Japanese man with a toothy smile, slip a fat wallet in his pocket. Perfect. Making sure that his shield was in place, Harry slipped his fingers gently through the man's pocket while keeping watch in case the crowd moved again or one of this bloke's mates noticed what he was doing. The wallet was easy enough to slip out and using the newspaper as a barrier, Harry slipped it into his pocket. He was unsure if the wallet was stuffed full of money or not, but he was going to hope it was.

When he was through the entrance to the station, Harry parted from the tourist crowd who were yakking in Japanese or Korean, he didn't know which, and walked towards one of the lavatories to count up the cash. After locking the cubicle and putting his gloves on, Harry searched the wallet. There were the typical debit cards representing foreign banks but Harry paid them no mind, and just focused on the money.

"Fuck me," he whispered.

Harry had seen pictures of the Japanese yen, knew how to recognise the notes of that particular currency. But he had never seen so many notes like this before. There were 6 100 notes, and 14 5000 notes, and 2 20,000 notes coming up to 90,600 yen. Who was this guy, a young dentist or something? There was very little in the way of British currency, just £900. There were a number of receipts in the wallet for different shops, but Harry paid them little mind and just took out the cash he could. He was unsure about the yen since the police would be looking for someone converting them into British currency, but decided to take it anyway. He could always cash them later, there was no real rush.

Elated by the find, Harry wiped the fingerprints he'd left when he'd pinched the wallet and slid it quietly into the plastic sandwich bag he'd placed in his coat for disposal, and left the toilet.

* * *

£1940.57.

That was how much money was in the wallet after being converted into British currency.

Harry could not really believe his eyes when he tallied up the final figure. He had added up all the cash he'd managed to pinch over the last 24 hours, including the Japanese tourist he'd pickpocketed. Harry had taken lots of cash over the years from various tourists, but it was incredibly rare one of them was so loaded. The big problem he had with converting the yen was the police would be watching for such a move just to catch him in the act. A muggle thief might have a problem, but Harry was not a muggle.

He could disguise himself as a Japanese with a glamour charm and use a spell on his vocal chords to disguise his real accent and make him sound like a Japanese, walk into a few places where he could convert currency and have them cashed into good old British currency. While Harry prepared for the rest of the day, he had breakfast. It was just simple porridge with mixed fruit, some coffee, and an apple.

When he was finished he went out as he was and with a notice-me-not spell, he was able to pass the various wallets into different post boxes. It didn't take him long, he just used his apparition to get to them all over the city. Harry tried not to apparate too often since he was trying to keep a low profile from the magical world. But he usually did it whenever he could, and he had become knowledgeable of the locations throughout the city where he could find the post boxes and post offices.

Since he was using magical transport to get to the various places through the city, Harry only needed five minutes before he returned to his flat and went to his bathroom. Looking at his reflection Harry lifted his wand and flicked it, mentally bringing up an image of a Japanese man his exact age.

Smiling at himself, despite feeling odd seeing his usual emerald green eyes now a deep brown, Harry picked up the money he'd collected from the tourist yesterday and went out of his flat.

* * *

Author's note - As you can see this story is set far further into the future, and Harry has survived the war with Voldemort. I didn't plan on writing about some final battle, I also wasn't interested in writing chapter after chapter about the years at Hogwarts. They're precisely the same aside from the fact Harry's a muggleborn and not a half blood. I hope this doesn't put anyone off. There will be a flashback scene where Harry kills Voldemort, but it won't be up for a while, sorry.

Please leave a review. I want everyone who reads this story, and the others I've written, to tell me what they think.


	3. Chapter 3 Rick the Idiot

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. Just this story.

Feedback is highly appreciated.

* * *

Rick the Idiot.

* * *

Sitting outside a cafe, nursing a coffee, Harry watched the masses as they walked both directions past him. Sitting outside the cafe like this, watching people of different ages, heights and builds, and from different backgrounds and colours and races walk past him on the street made him feel like he was sitting outside the human race.

Nothing new there. Even in the magical world, that mess of him being the Boy who lived, coupled with the fact he was a muggleborn had made him even more of an outcast. From the year dot, Harry had tried with all his strength, making at least some effort with the magical world while trying to make something of his misery in the muggle world, but it hadn't worked. In the end all he could do was simply fake his own death in the magical world and walk away, back to the anonymity of the muggle world.

Harry sighed and pushed those memories out of the way. Between the heat of the day at this hour, Harry was sweating slightly, but he drank some of his coffee anyway. He'd ignored the muggles who were surprised by his drink order, deeming their opinions unimportant.

His nonchalant attitude came from the same nonchalance that came from the people he had grown up with - the idiots in Privet Drive and much of Little Whinging (even to this day Harry had hopes the dump was taken over and dug up) and the people in the magical world. None of them had given much thought about his life, or the kind of misery he had to endure.

He might be considered a bit of a loser, or a sociopath. But Harry didn't mind; his attitude gave him an outlook few could match.

Every time he sat outside a cafe or coffee bar, he would watch people as they walked past, so self absorbed in their own little worlds which wasn't anything spectacularly new. With his legilimency skills Harry could have read any of their minds, get an idea of their secrets and if they owned anything he might find appealing later on, but he didn't bother.

Not only did he find the thought of just looking into other people's minds, no matter if it provided him with an in of blackmail, repugnant since Snape and Dumbledore had tried rummaging around in his brain, he just didn't want to. He didn't want to know any of these people walking past him down the street, he didn't care if they had problems, didn't care if they were good or bad people in their own rights.

He just wanted to be left alone.

He had been alone his entire life, lonely for so long without knowing any blood family who would actually want to have him around. One or two members of both families from either his mother or father's side might have been open minded, but Harry hadn't seen anyone, and he didn't know anyone; the Dursleys had enjoyed taunting him about how alone he was.

When he was younger, he had dreamt of someone willing to take him away, but it had never happened like a lot of things in life, and by the time he had grown up and managed to leave Privet drive he'd had no one to take care of himself but himself.

No. It was probably better that way, because with family he'd have to be reliant on them, not on himself as it should be, and besides he was an adult. Should he not be looking out for himself by now? After all he had been doing it his whole life, first in Little Whinging, a dump that he never ever wanted to see again unless a pyromaniac set the whole fucking place alight, and burn the whole place to the ground, and then later at Hogwarts.

When he'd first went to that schoo,l he'd, stupidly, wanted to make friends, but he'd learnt very quickly how fickle the magical people were, and by the time that whole disaster with the Norwegian Ridgeback that simpleton Hagrid was keeping in his shack on the grounds came, Harry had gotten the message loud and clear.

The magical would were as closed minded as the idiots living in Little Whinging.

And by the time Second Year came along and ended, he officially had no one in the whole world. He was alone, and it didn't take him long to realise that not only was it better that way, but it was the way it should be.

Harry shook his head idly and decided to spend his time just sitting there thinking quietly to himself, sipping his coffee idly. He loved days like this, days where he could just relax and not focus on picking someone's pockets and making off with whatever they had on them. Some criminals believed they weren't like everybody else but Harry knew that was not the truth and yet it was a total lie since everyone was different in their own way. Everyone was different, yes, they had different interests, they favoured different places, enjoyed different foods, but everyone was the same in their wants and the fact they lied.

Harry could count on both hands the number of times he had lied to others and how often someone had lied back to his face.

And then, just like that, he remembered all the times he had been lied to. Harry remembered the lies the Dursleys told him and everyone in the neighbourhood about his parents, making them out to be a drunk and a whore, and that they had taken him in under the goodness of their hearts. Harry remembered having to endure the scorn of the fucked up muggles in and out of Number 4 while old Arabella Figg watched and passed the findings to Dumbledore without giving a thought that he might need comfort.

He remembered the times the teachers had ignored the abuse going on, even as it became more and more extreme, his magic working overtime to keep him alive before he was six years old and managed to break free when his parent's last gift, his inheritance, gave him their memories, their knowledge and their experience.

He remembered escaping the Dursleys, and he wouldn't return until 3 years later with the wand his mother had custom made for him in a Gringotts vault, and finally made them pay the price. It was done partly out of wanting revenge against the short sighted morons who'd spent their lives beating him up, and partly to separate himself from the rest of the human race, but it was mostly to ensure Dumbledore could not send him back when he realised the old man had placed blood wards on the house.

And then he remembered his admittance into Hogwarts, the strange mixture of awe and amazement that he was the Boy Who Lived and yet a second generation muggleborn warring with each other, making him both hated and scorned more than any other student. Harry remembered the countless times he had been mistreated by the likes of Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, and the others, but he also remembered the supposed indifference from the teachers, like the complacent and ignorant and weak willed Minerva McGonagall, who ran around Dumbledore like a dog.

Some of the teachers had treated him with more respect, like Flitwick had, but Harry wasn't sure if it was genuine kindness or just professionalism, something McGonagall and Snape lacked. Whichever way it was, Harry didn't care.

Harry also remembered how he'd become isolated during that mess with the Chamber of Secrets and the Tri-wizard tournament, how everyone had turned on him until he had finally had enough, and swore a magically binding oath telling them he had had nothing to do with either event. During both events, Harry had wondered what it would take for the Wizarding world to stop making assumptions. In the end Harry had just…..given up.

Thinking about magic made him think back to the last mess he'd been in with the magical world, but then he exorcised that out of his mind completely - thinking about it now wouldn't change the fact he'd killed Voldemort, the Death eaters, and a host of other people, but since he had been on the run and had to practically fake his death to cover his tracks, he had no real desire to think about those years he'd spent in Hogwarts.

But it was impossible to think about Hogwarts without cursing the name Albus Dumbledore once more. The old man had managed to stop his mother's efforts to send him away from the magical world of Britain, away from Britain come to that, and forced him into a life at the Dursleys.

Quickly finishing the rest of his coffee, Harry stood up and walked off, joining the masses but he didn't let his mind wander over the last few days. It had taken him less than 48 hours, travelling to different places where he knew he could exchange currencies to completely convert the Japanese money into British pounds.

Walking down the streets today Harry could see no shortage of tourists he could've pick pocketed, but his heart wasn't in it today. True, he might take one or two wallets today but no more than that. True, as a wizard and fully qualified and mature, plus having the knowledge of his parents who'd been brilliant in their own way, Harry would've had no problem taking any number of wallets he wanted.

But that wasn't his way.

Harry had learnt from the best and the brightest how to steal wallets, how to break into houses, and how to con someone (granted, his knowledge there was mostly aided by his use of compulsion charms) and how to rob banks, but they were all done the muggle way. True, Harry wasn't really a fan of muggles thanks to his former life in Little Whinging even if he was, in the magical world's eyes, one but he had been raised in the muggle world and yet he had the knowledge of magic - he had his mother's knowledge of charms, potions and ancient curses and he had his father's knowledge of transfiguration, defence, curses and he had both their knowledge on Ancient runes.

The problem was finding a balance between them both. Sometimes he found it by going out and casting a spell on himself to stop anyone noticing his presence and then taking wallets out anyway, or he would use compulsion spells on people to leave simply give him their wallets and their money. But with the magical world searching for him, probably, if they had wised up to the fact he was still alive and had faked his death, it was not a good idea to use his magic continuously, especially with idiots like Arthur Weasley keeping an eye on the misuse of muggle artefacts, but there were departments in the Ministry that kept watch in case muggles were targeted by wizards and witches.

Harry just had to be careful.

* * *

After stealing 4 wallets - without using magic on the muggles - Harry just travelled across London on the bus and the tube, looking for anything to occupy his time before giving up and decided to head home. Harry lived in a flat in the West End. To him, the West end of London had more life, more diversity than Hogwarts, and it was quite a beautifully kept flat. It was large enough for just him to live in, though it had two other bedrooms though he didn't expect anyone else to use them.

While he felt sad there wouldn't be a future Mrs Potter in the future, not unless he changed his mind and met someone who he could trust, and no children to go with it, Harry was glad he'd decided not to be so absolute with his decision to live alone.

Anyway, he dropped the wallets on the table - he hadn't had any time to empty the wallets of any cash during the day, so he'd had to bring them back here, but he wasn't worried. Taking a pair of gloves Harry wiped them down quickly, using a cleaning charm to make sure there wasn't anything incriminating, and he opened a wallet which was made of dark brown leather.

There wasn't a lot of money in the wallet, just a couple of tenners but it was okay, the next one was a lot more hopeful. It had £50 in its folds with an extra £5 in another fold. The third wallet had £80 and the last just had a measly £10. So, he had £165 in his kitty. Not a lot after the last couple of days, but it was still good.

Harry picked up the cash and went to the bookshelves, and he opened up one of the books which was a fake and slipped the money into it before putting the book back on the shelves. Walking back into the kitchen Harry poured some water into the kettle and began boiling it to make some tea. While it did that he walked through the flat to make sure everything was in order, and then he found signs someone had tried breaking into the flat but couldn't. Harry wasn't surprised; as a burglar himself he knew that the chances of someone trying to break into his flat were a hundred to one. His flat wouldn't be able to stop a trained and professional wizard, but simple charms and runes would be able to stop muggles getting in and taking what he had.

Harry's use of magic in the flat was minimal, but while he didn't like living like a hermit or a nomad, never mind a fugitive, he knew it would just be safer to stay out of sight and out of mind. Making a note of the attempted break in, Harry walked back into the kitchen when he heard the kettle going and made himself some tea, spooning in a generous amount of honey into the mix.

While he drank he sat down in the living room, and turned on the television to see if there was a film he could watch. While he liked living without a proper job since his qualifications didn't allow for things like Ancient runes or charms, Harry did sometimes wish his life was a bit more….structured rather than disorganised. Ah, who was he kidding? It was better not having a job, no boss to irritate him, having to deal with other people. Yuck!

Besides the money he brought in with pickpocketing and burglary brought in more than enough cash to live on - granted, it was dangerous relying on proceeds from that type of work, but a few spells directed at the right people stopped any nosy bastard neighbours into finding out how he made his living. He wasn't afraid of the police. He didn't trust them, and he liked them even less, but he wasn't afraid of them.

Harry had realised quickly he'd needed to think of a way around that kind of aggravation. Why was it muggles simply could not ignore things, and just leave others be? Why did they have to poke their noses into other's business? Once more he thought of the Dursleys, of his Aunt Petunia and her nosy, nasty, gossiping ways. How many times had she craned her neck to listen in on other people's conversations, and then spill the beans of what she'd found out at those stupid little tea parties?

Then again the muggles on the street weren't much better, the useless bunch of idiots. Always trying to outdo each other, using their homes, their gardens, even their families as weapons in a never ending war against each other.

"Oh, look at me. I've just bought a car that costs twice as much as my last one."

"My roses are more beautiful than yours, I mean, look at them lined so neatly in a row next to my immaculately mowed lawn. I bet you wish you had roses arranged like soldiers on a parade ground."

"Good morning, I just had to paint the picket fence today, there was just a touch of grime on them."

Harry sneered as he remembered the never ceasing pretentiousness of that bunch of cretins. Life was too short in his mind for trivial acts of stupidity. Pushing it out of his mind, Harry decided to do some housework before giving himself time to relax. He really needed a few hobbies, anything to relieve the boredom.

He had just sat down in his chair in the living room when there was a knock on the door which made him look up in surprise - he rarely if ever had visitors, and all the neighbours in the flats tended to ignore him - and he didn't have any friends after learning the hard way growing up in the muggle world and later at Hogwarts having friends was overrated.

Slipping his hand to the holster where he kept his wand, Harry walked over to the door and looked at the mirror which was linked magically to one outside the door. Muggles couldn't see it, but wizards could. Harry saw the man and sighed in irritation.

Unlocking the door, he let the man inside, knowing from experience he wouldn't go away. He could've used magic, but the spells he had in mind were not…nice.

"Hello Rick," Harry said neutrally.

Rick walked in, looking around the flat with an admiring glance. He was a medium sized man with a round face with villainous features though in a more comic sense than anything brutal. Harry didn't really care if the idiot was looking greedily around his home, he had cast enough spells to stop burglars and sneak thieves from taking anything, and besides even if Rick did plan something he would see it a mile off and that didn't even need to look into Rick's sometimes sorry excuse for a brain and see he was envious of Harry.

"How ya doing, Harry?" Rick asked.

"I'm okay, but what do you want?" Harry said, folding his arms. He was taller than Rick and he didn't trust the little man who reminded him of the memories his parents had of Mungdungus Fletcher, but his attitude reminded him more of Peter Pettigrew. While Harry didn't judge everyone his parents met until he actually met them for himself, he knew the type of man Fletcher was, and if he and Rick met then they'd get along like a house on fire.

The two of them had known each other for years since Harry had escaped the Dursleys and he'd fallen in with a gang of pickpockets, and it hadn't taken long for Harry's natural intelligence to help him learn the ins and outs and the dos and the don'ts of burglary and pickpocketing. Rick had learnt, but he was a much slower learner than Harry was, and it had gotten him arrested more than once.

The police had him on record, which meant being out with him was dangerous. But there was something about the man that Harry truly didn't like, and he couldn't put his finger on it. In fact, if he did know what the reason was, then he would lose some of his awareness when it came to Rick so he didn't try to find out his reasons for disliking the little rat bag.

Unfortunately Rick's luck had caused all kinds of problems over the years, and for what? A criminal record? A poor reputation where all the big guys in the underworld would want nothing to do with him if they had a few grains of sense?

And he still didn't learn.

"Oh come on, Harry," the man said, slapping the taller man's shoulder. Harry winced, his nose wrinkling at the smell of booze and cigarettes on the man's breath, and swore to take a shower and put his clothes in the laundry basket after having it touched by this loser. "Don't be like that. I'm only 'ere to offer you a job."

Harry narrowed his eyes. He refused to take the bait. "If you've come here to give me another sordid business deal with me as the fall guy…," he began dangerously.

Rick's eyes widened and he stepped back quickly, but Harry was rapidly closing the distance with murder in his eyes. In a fight, Rick knew he would lose hands down, and they both knew it. "Nah, nothing like that," he quickly snivelled, unknowingly reminding Harry of pathetic little Peter Pettigrew. "it's-"

"If its a drug scam, I want nothing to do with it," Harry hissed, uncaring if he was being rude by interrupting the little bastard constantly.

"Nah, will you let me speak?" Rick snapped impatiently.

Harry sighed and made a 'get on with it' gesture.

"Fanks," Rick said sarcastically, ignoring the glower from Harry. "There's this gang, see, they want to burgle a house belonging to a rich celeb."

He beamed up at Harry, as if expecting the taller man to be grateful for the opportunity.

Harry shook his head. "Rick," he began irritably. "Do you remember the last time you were arrested, it was because you joined a gang for the same reason. God alone knows how you managed to be let off."

"I'm lucky, ain't I?" Rick grinned. "I'm smart."

Harry sighed. "I won't say it. It's too easy. Look, Rick, the idea is nice, but why is the gang trying to burgle this house anyway?" Then a thought occurred to him, one that made him look exasperatedly at him. "Rick, please tell me straight that this gang are not amateurs just starting out?" he begged.

Rick looked a little shamefaced and Harry groaned, cursing the idiots loudly in his mind. "I don't believe it. Rick, the last time you got done in, you were working with a bunch of idiots, so why are you repeating your mistakes over and over again?"

"I'm not," Rick suddenly looked at him with disgust. "Listen, okay, I admit these guys are just startin' but they need our help. You're good, Harry. The coppers never catch you."

"That's because I don't work with idiots who don't know what they're doing," Harry snapped, not saying a word that he classed Rick as the same. "Rick, how many burglaries have this bunch done, or are they morons like the Bling ring gang?"

Rick didn't know who the Bling Ring gang were, or why Harry was even thinking about them, so he ignored the question. "They've burgled places 'fore, Harry, but this'll be a big score for 'em. And you'll get a share, too."

"And you?" Harry pointed out, looking at him and trying hard not to strangle the little shit stain. "I guess you're going to get paid."

"Yeah, well I'll get paid," Rick said as if it were an afterthought but Harry was not fooled. "C'mon, Harry, I know you're a still picking pockets, why not go for something bigger?"

Harry raised an eyebrow as he studied the little man with contempt, the urge to use his wand and simply kill the little bastard was becoming harder and harder for him to ignore. If this idiot thought that he was just picking pockets then it meant his hopes that his little robbery of a particularly large jewellery shop, but he hadn't yet cashed any of what he'd stolen or the bank robbery he'd committed by himself - a few unlocking spells and a few other really good spells to confuse the muggle security, and he'd managed to summon the money after finding out where it all was. He might have broken a few of his own rules, but sometimes it was a good idea.

But he wasn't going to tell Rick any of that, and it wasn't just because of the fact he happened to be a wizard, no it was because he didn't want the little idiot to know he was more well off than he was.

"They want you to help, yeah?" Harry clarified.

Not seeing where he was going with this line of questions, Rick nodded with a grin. " Yeah. I mean I am experienced, right? So are you."

Harry wasn't really impressed by the compliment, Rick regularly used them anyway to rope others like Harry into his schemes or these idiotic little plans. But in this case…

Rick had made the mistake of working with the big league in order to make himself bigger. He had also worked with the drugs trade, not a smart move, especially when the Drug's squad and the Murder squad got involved - Harry still didn't know details about the Murder squad's involvement, and he didn't care. Worse, he never really bothered learning more about the gangs he worked with, and sometimes it got him caught and Harry wasn't even around.

But he had never worked with a gang more or less just starting before….

Rick cast a terrible shadow over everything he did, that was why he had always been a bit of a fuck up. Harry had no idea what would happen now, worse he didn't even know the gang he'd joined with, but he'd hoped they hadn't placed Rick of all people onto a pedestal; he'd have them doing things they really shouldn't.

Reaching a decision Harry nodded, "Okay, I'll help," he said, ignoring Rick's look of delight and just didn't bother telling him anything about what was really going through his mind. The urge to murder this little twat and cremate the corpse was getting stronger.


	4. Chapter 4 Failures

Failures.

Sitting in the back of the van with Rick and the rest of the gang as they headed for the place they were going to burgle - he'd determined it was somewhere in the Richmond area - Harry wondered if he was really making a big mistake by coming out with Rick when he was more than capable of planning his own burglaries. He had been near this gang for close to a week, and while he had an aversion to the kind of shit Rick put out everyday, he'd decided to give the gang the benefit of the doubt before he made his decision to either stick with them to mitigate the worst of the potential mistakes Rick made, or just to leave them to it so he could get away without worrying about them. There were about 7 of them, but he hadn't bothered to speak with them too often, he didn't need to because he had looked into their minds. Four of them had the right mindset for a thief - they were cautious, careful, ready to put the work in when it came to planning, and they were willing to play the long game which meant they took their time to make a plan, watch the target and then get ready to break into the house or the business and make sure they get away without being caught. Harry got along well with them, especially since they had common sense, and they themselves had issues with Rick, and he was hoping that when he made his decision he could make them leave the gang to follow their own paths without being dogged down by failure.

The other three…..

Well, they were better than Rick, but not by much. The three of them were a little bit more impatient than the others, but thankfully the majority and their decisions took precedence over the minority. Harry hadn't bothered to learn the name of the mark though he should have done, and since he had been the one along with two other members of the gang to learn what they could about the mark so they could make the plan needed to break in without the mark being there in the first place, he had learnt enough of the habits to know they regularly left the house and were gone for hours.

Piece of cake.

Harry had followed the mark - a young woman who was a singer, but he hadn't listened to anything she'd composed and sold - he wasn't interested in getting too close to a mark though some people who had OCD would probably listen to it so they could get more insights into the mark's character, but all that mattered to him was what she had in her house, and the basic layout and he'd seen in the woman's mind that she had more than enough to make the gang richer than they were.

But seriously, robbing a singer was easy. That was the problem with celebrities, they were good, truly good, at meeting their friends, but they were incredibly thoughtless about their properties. Harry had burgled celebrities who had only the most basic security systems in their homes, and they still made the same mistakes over and over again by talking about going out and double locking the doors. Like that was going to keep a burglar out. Sure, one or two of them were not going to be complacent, but they were a minority.

Unfortunately, with someone with Rick who was joined by three very young and very brazen kids, a straightforward night could quickly turn into a disaster. Harry was only glad he wasn't the only one who was worried, if the four others looks were anything to go by. Harry studied those four closely, and like him they were concerned, but Harry was unsure if it was for the same reasons. He knew that they had been on a few burglaries with Rick, but this was one of the biggest they'd ever pull, so it was possible they were simply nervous.

Before the burglary, Harry had been taken aside by one of the gang, one of the more intelligent ones that Harry preferred the most.

"You're not keen on Rick, are you?" the kid asked.

Harry knew the kid's name was Michael, and said, "No, not really. We've known each other long time. He and I were in the same pickpocketing gang, but he's been arrested too many times to be trusted. Be honest, Michael, why did you let him join?"

"We didn't," Michael said. "He joined by saying he'd done it all. But truthfully he hasn't done any real good for us."

"In what way?"

"Well, his advice isn't great, and he doesn't seem to know anything."

"Oh, he does, he is an experienced thief, but truthfully this isn't what he's good at. He pretends to be good, but he isn't. He just wants to become one of the big boys. He's simply not cut out for that type of life, fast cars, beautiful women, etc. It's a pipe dream Micheal, its not going to happen for someone like him," Harry saw the look on Michaels' face and sighed. He liked this kid and he didn't want him to be let down in the worst possible way.

"Listen, cut him loose after tonight. Just go solo, work on your own with the others, and just do as I told you; plan, plan, and execute. Don't let losers like Rick into your gig. He's been brought down too many times."

Harry hoped the kid did as he'd advised, but he wasn't sure. He had seen the uncertainty in the kid's mind, but he knew that Michael was leaning very very close to doing as he'd told him.

He hoped he did, Michael had far more potential as a leader without some stupid loser who couldn't stop bringing jobs down because of his own mistakes and dreams that would never come true.

Harry sighed and rested his head against the wall as he looked around. Rick was in the cab, and so Harry had no idea what was going through the little grunt's mind. Outside there came the pitter patter of rain that quickly became torrential. And the wind buffeted against the side of the van.

Joy. Working in weather like this was a nightmare.

"Well, we can say goodbye to stealing electronics now," Harry said aloud, uncaring if the others disagreed. Faulty electronics was not good for business for thieves. When thieves sold electronics, they wanted a good price for something that would work. Sure, you could con them, but that sort of thing could leave a trail the police could follow.

The declaration instantly brought a round of protests until Michael and the ones who had more common sense argued them down. Harry looked at the others, focusing most of his attention on the ones who had the same kind of mindset as Rick. If Michael and the other three who actually used their brains when it came to burglaries, they were the opposite. Harry was worried about them because the key to success for every burglary gang was being able to work as a team. Their presence made it very dangerous because if they made a mistake, like take their gloves off then their prints would be everywhere. Rick had made a similar mistake once, long ago when he had made the stupid decision to spit a wad of chewing gum onto the carpet of a house he and another gang were in the middle of emptying.

The police arrested him and the other three members and put them away. The other members of the gang had not hesitated to broadcast to others the type of mistake that got them arrested. They had been a good gang and one of many Harry had admired. Their arrest and imprisonment had been a blow.

Harry could see much the same thing happening here. Only this time it wouldn't just be Rick the loser being responsible, but one of these guys. Harry had warned Michael and the others to be careful and to keep a close watch on the others, using the story of the chewing gum and hoping and praying they used their common sense to listen.

Yeah, they'd protested, but then who wouldn't when your friends were being dissed?

But they weren't stupid enough to just ignore him and his advice, so there was some hope. Finally the van stopped and so had the rain, which meant they wouldn't get soaked, but it was still wet and there was still a strong breeze.

The driver was another member of the majority of the gang who used their brains and had the sense to park the van out of sight. Harry and Rick led the group with Michael, Harry keeping a close watch on them both - he might think Michael had more common sense than Rick and the others of the gang who were prone to go head first into danger like a stupid Gryffindor, but Michael's inexperience was what worried him the most.

Harry's hand fingered the handle of his wand for reassurance. If something went wrong then he would would be prepared for it…

* * *

The house was nice, but then Harry had seen dozens of houses and places that were great places to burgle. During his career as a burglar, Harry had either been on his own or he had been with gangs who had proceeded to strip mine the places other people lived in, and it had taken Harry years to move past the stage where he hesitated to break into someone else's home and just steal what was there. When Harry had first started as a criminal he had hesitated, now he didn't give it a second's fault.

He'd hated touching other people's things without gloves, which insulated his hands from the objects owned by other people so he didn't feel that hesitation anymore, though it had lessened over the years.

The house was done up in tans and cream colours with rich wooden tables, expensive television set and DVD recorder, CD player which was the latest model, so they should fetch a very nice price. Harry ran a finger lightly over some of the furniture, the sofa and the armchair, expertly identifying them all as high quality, but then it would be considering who owned it all.

Sadly, their van was too small for furniture, but then Harry felt it was a good thing - it was always tricky to sell furniture sometimes since someone could take one look at it, see a feature like a wrinkle or a stain and identify it like that. That was one reason Harry always stuck to cash or diamonds to steal. Harry went upstairs alone, noting the artwork which was really bad looking; clearly the idiot might have good taste but it didn't extend to buying really nice artwork.

Oh well, never mind. Harry had no intention of touching anything like that, and just focused on reaching the master bedroom. The others hadn't followed him as they proceeded to strip the entire ground floor to the walls. Even Rick was downstairs while he was up here, but personally Harry was pleased by the opportunity to just be on his own.

The master bedroom was just as extravagant as the living room. Harry had learnt that you could tell a great deal about people by how they customised their cars, their computers down to their desktop pictures, to the kind of music they collected and the food they ate. Houses, cars, bedrooms and living rooms and wallets were the best way to learn about the personality of the person who owned them or lived in them.

Harry could already tell this person loved living in the lap of luxury, but whether or not it was just for show or if it was because of some psychological complex he didn't know and didn't really care. Walking over to the vanity table, Harry broke into the drawers - none of them were locked which really helped his case and he picked the jewellery out, sorting through the fake diamond jewellery and the real ones he could see. It was 50/50. While Harry loved forgeries since it offered a great deal of flexibility, he didn't like people buying rings and necklaces with fake jewels in them since it felt like he was stealing kid toys of the same things.

It took him a few minutes to sort the jewellery out and put all the genuine ones in a bag, and when he was finished he searched the rest of the bedroom but he couldn't really find anything interesting. Even when he went into the office, he ignored the desk top PC. Other criminals might nick something like that, but not Harry. He wasn't interested in computer crime since so many people made simple concepts so complicated, and he didn't like the con tricks con artists used since he believed real world con tricks were the best. Call him old fashioned but that was Harry Potter. Besides, you couldn't run classic cons like the salting scam on the internet, could you? Well, you could run something like that online, but some people wouldn't even fall for it, not without some physical evidence.

* * *

"Harry." Harry turned in the direction of the voice as he was methodically searching through some of the other rooms for anything worth taking, and tuned to face Micheal. He had a bag full of jewellery, some CDs kept in the office and in the bedroom which the rich celeb kept close by, it would probably only give him pennies considering his other burglaries and pickpocketing that kept him going.

"What is it?"

"Something's wrong." Harry stiffened at once when he saw the grim look on Michael's face. "What, what is it?"

"It's Rick. He wants us to stay here for something, but the fact is we've practically taken everything, and even the idiots who think we should just break in without getting an idea of the place are getting nervous. Even they know we can't get everything into the van, it's too small for the suite."

Harry stiffened even more. Rick had always had this problem of being too greedy, he had been like that since Harry had known him, but he was glad some of the idiots who had the same basic mindset as him had a few more brains in their heads.

"What's he doing now?" he asked as he worked out what he was going to do.

"He's gone into the garden for some weird reason," Michael said, looking really worried.

"What?! But he knows if he goes out there while the celeb is out, and if he's seen the Police will be called out," Harry snapped unable to believe the new level of stupidity Rick was descending into this time. Something occurred to him. "Hold on, what time is it anyway?" he added to check his watch and then answered his own question. "It's almost four in the morning. That celeb should be back soon. Anyway," he addressed Michael. "Get everyone out to the van. Wait for us, but if I come back we'll drive off and leave Rick here. If he wants to stay in the garden then let him. But if we don't get into the van five minutes from now, leave. Don't look back. Just leave."

Michael nodded, but he didn't look happy as he turned away.

* * *

After the kid had walked away, Harry closed his eyes and sighed in annoyance. Walking into the bedroom overlooking the garden again, he could easily see Rick's silhouette in the ambient lighting in the garden. What was he doing down there anyway? Harry leaned closer to the window to get a proper look as much as he could through the window. It looked like Rick had his right arm pressed against his head…like he was on a mobile!

Harry crashed down the stairs, ignoring the remaining members of Michael's gang, but he called, "Get to the van!" and just opened the back door.

Rick was on his mobile, and as Harry slowed down to a stop to hear what the little bastard was saying, he became even angrier. "Yeah, it worked like a dream, but you'll 'ave to remember our bargain, right? I 'elped you catch this gang and lock 'em away. Right, Inspector."

Harry's hand slipped to his wand - he never really used his magic against muggles since there was a good chance the Ministry would pick it up, but in this case he was ready to make an exception to that rule.

He was just about to banish the phone from Rick's hand when they little crook turned it off after the Inspector put his own phone down.

"Suit yourself," Rick muttered not happy about being cut off like that, but then he realised Harry was there, looking at him coldly. "Harry, I just needed ta-"

"Phone the police?" Harry snapped, his expression and his tone stopping the glimmer of an argument or denials. "How long have you been a police informant?"

"Never, c'mon Harry, mate, y'know I've never dream of turning grass-"

"Yes, you fucking would!" Harry snapped, holding back the urge to shout; he wasn't sure if the neighbours had already realised if something was going on so he was relying on his deep rooted instinct to keep silent as he'd been taught over the years, but he wasn't going to waste his time trying to find out if someone was either spying on him and Rick or eavesdropping. Besides it didn't really make much difference if the police were already on their way. He only hoped Michael and the others managed to get clear before they got caught, and he cursed himself for not bothering to find out how much intelligence they had even if Michael and the majority had enough smarts to know when to quit when they had the chance.

"Face it, Rick, you'd sell your own mother if it meant you could get a few bob out of them," Harry sneered at the pathetic little man who reminded him more of Pettigrew at that moment, making him itch to use the killing curse. Again, probably not a good idea with the neighbours spying on them. "Now how long were you a police informant?"

Rick looked away but he didn't speak, and Harry's temper snapped and he reached forwards and grabbed hold of Rick's scrawny neck and began squeezing. "How long have you been an informant?"

Rick was choking. He tried to struggle, but Harry was too strong.

But Harry didn't care. "How long have you been an informant?" he repeated, quite happy to keep squeezing until every last atom of breathe left Rick's body. The crooked little scum tried to fight back, but with his air circulation constricted he had a hard time trying to break the choke hold.

"How long have you been an informant?" Harry repeated again, knowing he could not keep this up much longer; oh he loved doing this to Rick, loved seeing the little man's face turn different colours like the skin of a cuttlefish, but he really wanted information from him. One thing was for sure. Rick was going to die tonight.

Rick choked out something, two words. "Fuck you!"

Annoyed Harry tightened his grip and walked Rick over to the wall. The wall was tall and made completely from bricks, tastefully decorated by pieces of jaggedly shaped flint. Harry knew he was probably going to do Rick a lot of harm, but if he could cause a lot of pain to the little shit then he would. Slamming Rick into the wall repeatedly, making the man let out choking gasps as his back impacted on the jagged flints, Harry felt it was kind of therapeutic. He knew he was one of a long line of people who had wanted to do this, that made him even happier since he had first dibs.

"How long have you been an informant?" Harry asked, repeating the question over and over again, always giving Rick the chance to respond, but the little coward whimpered and squealed out choking sounds that made no sense. When he repeated himself again, Harry loosened his hold on Rick's throat but kept a strong grip on his shoulder, warning Rick not to try to escape.

Rick suddenly cried out, unable to take the pain any longer. "Alright, alright," he cried out. "6 months. The coppers arrested me 7 months ago, and they were about to send me down. I can't take prison again, I just couldn't. I was beaten black 'n blue last time. I asked 'em for a deal; I'd give 'em the names and addresses of all the crooks I knew, I even tried to give 'em your's, Harry, but I couldn't."

Angry that this pathetic little son of a bitch had probably betrayed their mutual acquaintances, but pleased the spell he had cast on himself had guaranteed his safety, Harry filled in the gaps. "And then you promised to drop me into the deep end, where I'd then be locked up," he said, "what about the gang, where do they fit into this?"

"The police want 'em," Rick managed to get out when Harry's fingers began curling absently in the wizard's increasing anger. "They've been a bit of a problem recently, and the coppers want 'em out of the way" Rick cringed as he felt the grip become tighter. "Please, Harry, let me go."

"Harry, what's going on?" Fortunately for Rick, though even that was debatable, Michael came into the garden and stopped in amazement when he saw the scene and tried hard to take everything in, but couldn't.

Harry half glanced at him, and sighed, he'd hoped Michael would have left, but clearly they hadn't. "Get away from here Michael. Rick's a police informant. He's been handing over others to the coppers for 6 months now, and he's trying to do the same to you guys. Leave the van, get away from here before the coppers arrive-"

Unfortunately Rick had managed to regain some of his bravado. "They'll catch you up."

Michael went for him, but Harry pushed him back with his leg. "Don't," Harry said. "It's done. Now, get back to the van, and get everyone out of here, just leave everything. It's not worth it. Tell everyone to just lie low."

Michael nodded shakily, the idea of spending time inside getting to through to him. "When do you think the cops will arrive, Harry?"

The distant sounds of sirens drawing nearer and nearer answered his question. "Any minute now," Harry was grim. "Just go, Mike. I'll handle this moron," he shook Rick for emphasis, making the little man squeak.

Michael nodded, still looking unsure, but he did as he was told and turned and ran. Harry's eyes watched him go, and he hoped that he managed to escape this mess, but if he was put inside then he would either live and come out wiser or he would be put in there eventually.

"They'll never leave, the copper's 'ill get 'em," Rick said with certainty.

Harry glared at him, the effect more sinister in this light, and he smiled mentally at the way Rick winced and whimpered. "You made them do this," he growled.

His hands flashed to Rick's head and snapped his neck before he could even cry out.

* * *

Gazing down at the body in frustration, Harry wondered why so many things couldn't be easy. He never liked killing people - Voldemort, the Death eaters and the Dursleys didn't count, they had all been guilty of their crimes, but Harry wasn't a murderer like Dumbledore probably saw him as - and so he tried not to make a habit out of this.

But Rick would've caused problems if he had lived, and Harry had done what many others would have done to stop the little parasite from getting more people banged up though how long he would've been safe after Harry got the word out was anyone's guess. He had just saved Rick the pain of being beaten and tormented.

Coming out of his thoughts Harry listened to the sounds of sirens. They were too close now, so that probably meant there were cars outside. Harry looked around desperately for a way to escape, his mind running through what he knew of the property. The house backed onto the London Underground's District line. If he could get to the railway line and walk down while avoiding the live rail he could find a place to apparate back to his flat.

While he would've preferred leaving through the house with a guarantee of safety, Harry was far from stupid and knew that by now people were looking out of their windows, and besides it wasn't uncommon for them to see criminals do some really stupid things. Like climbing a wall overlooking a railway line instead of disappearing into thin air.

Not for the first time, Harry reflected as he scaled the wall using the same spells used by wizards to adhere like spiders sticking to the walls, he was glad he was a wizard. Even as he pretended to have problems scaling the wall and finding little hand holds and footholds for him to climb the wall with, he didn't let that worry him as much. He could hear the sirens now and knew they were close by, but he had no idea if Michael and some of the others had gotten away.

He didn't have time to check and to see if he could help them, but he needed to escape now, and Harry's mind was racing as he heard voices from behind him. Five police officers were coming running down the garden path towards the wall, shouting at him to jump down and to not resist arrest. They were wasting their time since Harry was practically at the top of the wall anyway. Ignoring the police officers and not bothering to say anything to them, Harry prepared to jump down, just as a tall man wearing a sharp suit came running down, for this hour to be dressed so smart impressed Harry.

"Let me guess," Harry's voice stopped the man in his tracks, but only for a moment, he continued his approach at a slow walk. "You're the inspector who made a deal with dear old Rick? You might as well admit it, he told me."

"And you killed him?" The Inspector asked, not confirming it since they both knew it was true.

"He was going to die no matter what," Harry pointed out even as he tensed his muscles, prepared for the jump and the potential injuries he'd receive on landing. "Rick might have been an idiot, and he might've gotten away with getting some of his so called friends locked up. But in time people would figure out he was a grass. Rick liked to drink and talk, and don't think for one second that the idiots who trusted him and got banged up for their troubles would tell their friends out here what happened. Rick would have a bounty on his head faster than he could blink, well could have," he added as he took into account that he had just murdered Rick.

"You're definitely going to go down for that," the police officer said as he looked down in distaste at the dead body.

"No, I won't," Harry said before he made the jump and looked left and right like he was crossing a road and crossed the rail tracks to reach the other side and he walked straight down. All the time he could hear the sounds of shouting that became increasingly hard to pick out as he left the scene.


	5. Chapter 5 An Old Acquaintance

An old acquaintance.

The pizza was delicious, and the tomato sauce mixed with the onion, pepper and pepperoni and salami and bacon and cheese assaulted Harry's mouth with gorgeous flavours. If there was one thing he loved about Lee and his setup it was there was a vast variety of different businesses and talents, but this one was perhaps his favourite. Harry looked around the restaurant, studying many of the servers and the customers. Lee operated two restaurants inside the same building - it was a tall order, but it added to his business acumen immensely, and as he studied the clientele and the servers he knew one thing about them.

But Harry was one of a handful of muggleborns - he wasn't sure of the exact number - who knew that most of Lee's businesses were drug businesses. But then Lee understood the need to be connected with various angles of business, the legitimate and the illegal.

Despite all their differences in ages, height, clothes and talents, all of them had one thing in common.

They were all muggleborns. The wizarding world was so prejudiced towards muggleborns, yes, but it was nearly an urban myth the pureblood and half blood thirds of the magical population of the country held the best jobs. Granted the pureblood families held the monopoly of various businesses and they made sure muggleborns were given the most degrading jobs imaginable - it didn't matter to them one bit if they were eager, had 12 NEWT exam qualifications, and very gifted. Deep inside many of the pureblood idiots were deeply terrified and threatened by the muggleborns because of their gifts, but they used their own ignorance against them. Harry's parents were one of the luckier muggleborns because to a goblin a wizard was a wizard, blood had nothing to do with it, and because Gringotts was goblin territory the Ministry legislation meant nothing to them. Besides both of his parents had had an interest in curse breaking and in the ancient world of magic. Healing was another job that allowed muggleborns to work for them and so it wasn't completely all bad.

But some muggleborns weren't so lucky, not many but some were forced out of the magical world and back into the muggle world. That had problems as well since at around the time of 11 or even younger, many of the children were exposed to child abuse because of the fear of those around them when their magic manifested themselves, and sometimes that fear lead to attempted exorcisms. Harry grimaced as he thought about the exorcism the Dursley bastards forced him to go through, and he knew that he probably wasn't the only one to go through it either.

Another problem was the muggleborn children had found freedom in the magical world because the abuse was postponed for another few months, but sometimes the families would kick them out, their own children. It was sick. But for some muggleborns, Harry included, crime was the only way for them to go, and so they had developed survival strategies and learnt how to steal.

Idiots like Dumbledore never realised or seemed to care about the muggleborns and the abuse many of them went through on a daily basis when they weren't in Hogwarts, but then again when had Dumbledore had common sense? Harry shook his head as he recalled those messes he had had to go through on a daily basis as Dumbledore manipulated his life; he had some ideas of what was going on in the miserable old twats head when he'd decided to set up those manipulations, but truthfully he didn't care anymore. Dumbledore didn't know where to find him, especially since he'd canceled the blood spells he'd found in Dumbledore's office.

Harry shook his head as he glanced around the restaurant. The first war against Voldemort had been one of those times where the muggleborns had just left the magical world in droves - they knew it was suicide to stay in the magical world when everything had gone straight to hell. Lee himself had been around twenty years before. Harry didn't know why, he had never found out the reasons behind Lee's desire to leave, but he could hazard a guess; Lee was a natural born businessman, and the pureblood bunch had made it virtually hard for him to operate, so he had needed to leave. That was the biggest reason so many muggleborns left, they had the talents and the brains needed to succeed, they were just not given the opportunities or the chances to make it big.

That didn't automatically mean that Lee was the only one to build and set up a businesses for muggleborns to work in and get back on their feet. No way in hell. Lee was one of ten muggleborns who'd set up different businesses in several cities across the UK, but Lee had businesses in the south east of Britain that went a long way into mitigating the worst of the financial issues plaguing the muggleborns who'd left the magical world.

Lee had given opportunities to other muggleborns. One of the biggest problems and headaches many muggleborns suffered when they left the magical world because of the discrimination was since they had taken advantage of the magical world's freedom they couldn't get anywhere because they hadn't realised they might need their secondary school education as well!

They also didn't dare ask their families for help financially, many of them had turned their backs on their own children, didn't want anything to do with them and so on. Others had already paid a fortune for the Hogwarts tuition fees as it was, and had completely split from their kids because they didn't understand them anymore, Harry didn't pretend to care about the details, but he did feel sorry for them.

Harry had to admire the business model Lee had set up, he had a restaurant that had space for both muggleborns and muggles. The idea was he could have a place that was warded internally and yet have the same amount of space needed for muggles to blend in with the street the restaurant was on. While wizards had wards to prevent muggles finding them, Lee wants his business empire to be rather big, although calling it an empire was a stretch for the imagination. The reason it was big was because he hired muggleborns to help him - Lee didn't care about their qualifications so long as they had a brain in their heads, Harry himself had worked for Lee in the past, so he owed a great deal to the older man.

As he ate his pizza slowly, Harry felt sad as his eyes picked out Katie Bell and Penny Clearwater; he might have had issues with the ex Ravenclaw's lack of aid towards Luna, but the girl had truly no idea of what was going on under her nose. At least she was better than Percy Weasley, that was all Harry could think to himself as he thought of the arse licking moron who'd simpered around Barty Crouch senior like he was a saint or the second coming of Jesus, for fuck's sake.

But looking at the two girls reminded Harry of the problems muggleborn girls suffered. Sometimes they were lucky and were allowed in having a job, yet sometimes they weren't so lucky. Sometimes even people like Lee was unable to give them work, so they were left with but one option.

Prostitution.

It did make Harry sad that the two girls were one of many girls forced into becoming whores just to make a living, but there was nothing they could do about it; they couldn't exactly leave the city without cash, so they had to accept defeat. While Lee worked hard to establish new restaurants, usually it took time. He needed to get the space rented or leased, outfit it, decorate it, and then he would have to find people to cook and serve the customers. Katie and Penny had failed to get a job with him at first, but he had redeemed himself in their eyes by giving them work as waitresses. But the two girls had been working as prostitutes too long, and now they continued to sell themselves for money. Harry himself was a regular customer to the two girls, though it mostly to give them as much cash as he could give them, but he rarely had sex with them. He was more pitying towards them and he made sure to pay them extra, he had enough money for that.

In fact, that was why Harry was here. He had to fence some of the things he'd pinched recently. It had been a fortnight since that mess with Rick and the police, and Harry had just left for the south coast to wind down and just relax, but he had burgled a jewellery shop for the sake of it. He should have known Rick would have turned grass, he was just glad the idiot muggle had been relatively easy to kill and that police officer had been easy to fool.

Harry was just nearing the end of his meal when he heard a voice he hadn't heard in a long time.

"B-but I was recommended to this place."

Harry felt a headache start to throb as he placed the voice even as Lee said in an apologetic tone. "Look, it doesn't matter who recommended you to me," he said as he tried to hold off his frustration, "I don't have any jobs going."

"B-b-but can't I leave you my CV-?"

Harry closed his eyes. She never did know when to quit…

"Yes, you can. Why, I don't know - you've already shown it to me. I have restaurants and clubs opening all the time," Lee replied, "so the chances of getting a job are good. But you might have to wait. Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't find work in the magical world."

"I tried," the voice that was sounding increasingly familiar to Harry, "I even tried to get Albus Dumbledore to help-"

Silence descended around the restaurant at the mention of Dumbledore's name.

"Don't. Ever. Mention. That. Loony. Old. Bastard. In. Here. Ever. Again," Lee ground out, "that man has done nothing for us, nothing. Out in the muggle world, we have to rely on our own to survive. That old bastard made promises he had no intention of keeping," Lee snapped at the woman in front of him.

Harry stood up and walked around the restaurant in a circle so he could see who Lee was speaking too. He had a feeling who it was already but there was no harm in making sure, besides he could always use a memory charm on her afterwards. Harry soon found Lee speaking to the woman, a woman who had waist length brunette curly hair. Even with her back to him he knew who she was since the state of her hair, the bossy tone to her voice, and the way she held herself was distinctive. But he didn't say a word even as he waited for her to speak.

"B-but surely he helps you from time to time, I mean you can't have set this business up by yourself," she said.

Harry closed his eyes and winced at her lack of tact, knowing from long experience Lee would be offended at the need to rely on someone like Dumbledore. While the man wasn't evil, he wasn't necessary useful, and besides how on Earth could Dumbledore provide aid to Lee? For a start the man's businesses were in the muggle world, and while the old man was politically powerful he didn't have the knowledge needed to establish businesses out here.

Lee had never told Harry how he had gotten the funding for his businesses, and he had never pried. But he knew that he had managed to do it without help from other wizards unless he'd banded together with other muggleborns, but anything was possible-

"I set up my business with the help of other muggleborns," Lee ground out, his tone making it clear to everyone but the stupid woman in front of him that she would be very lucky to get a job at this point from him, "but I built up my business myself. Dumbledore's not a god, Miss Granger," he pointed out.

Harry felt a presence by his shoulder and he turned his head slightly to find Katie Bell by his side. "I see Hermione hasn't changed that much, has she?" she commented.

"Nope, still as tactless and as socially retarded as ever," Harry muttered.

Other muggleborn patrons who'd experienced Hogwarts and the headmaster at some point muttered their agreement of Lee's scorn for the man. Some of them had gone to Dumbledore at some point for help, but the man had either been in the middle of one of his schemes or had tried to use them for his own ends in return of his assistance. In Dumbledore's mind it was a fair exchange, but sometimes the old man overreached himself, and they had been accused of things that they hadn't done when they had refused, so they had retreated from the magical world in order to hide. That was something Harry had never truly worked out about the old man, why he would seem to have completely different personalities that conflicted with the image the wizarding world had of him. But for some muggleborns, it was down to a matter of choice - some wanted to stay, others wanted to go back and use their magic for something less beneficial for others.

"I-I-I-" Granger tried to say, but Harry decided to intervene. "Nothing to say, Miss Know-it all?"

Harry was kicking himself; he hadn't intended to let the stupid girl know he was still alive, knowing from Penny and Katie everyone in the wizarding world considered him to be dead, but he couldn't resist the urge to taunt her.

Granger swung round and her eyes widened when they caught sight of him. "Y-you? But, you're dead!"

"Haven't you ever heard stories of people faking their own deaths?" Harry asked; the restaurant had gone silent, but since everyone knew the story and no one in their right mind would tell the Ministry since the muggleborns suffered more from them ever since Fudge, a hidden pureblood supremacist, took power and made things worse with the likes of the 'reformed Death eaters for everyone here, no one would tell that mindless bunch anything.

"You faked your own death?" Granger whispered.

"Smart, aren't you?" Harry said sarcastically, sneering at Grangers' unintelligent mimicry.

Hermione Granger had never been his favourite person at Hogwarts. The girl might have been called smart by some, but Harry had broken into McGonagall's office in first year and had quickly discovered that while the teachers were impressed by how quickly she had picked up the material, they didn't think much about her attitude or the fact that while she could repeat the information verbatim she wasn't very good at thinking on the job and she wasn't good at improvisation. Granger was good at memorising things, but she didn't limit how much knowledge she let out, and despite being told by various teachers over the years the stupid, stubborn girl never kept her writing to the required length, and she also never bothered to practice the spells she learnt, unlike other students. Harry might have had his parents knowledge downloaded into his brain, but that didn't mean some spells came naturally to him, so he had needed to practice.

That was an academic reason for Harry's dislike for the girl, but as they had passed from one year to another he had found other reasons to dislike her. He didn't like the way the girl bossed everyone about to do their homework, and would then throw temper tantrums whenever someone got a mark better than hers. Many Gryffindors had been put off trying to get good marks in their lessons because of her, so in the long run they hadn't bothered trying, and it caused them to suffer. The two had clashed of course; because of the way his parents had transferred their knowledge to him, Harry was able to pass his classes effectively. Granger had never liked the fact he had beaten her from time to time when he felt like it, which was practically every week just to rile her up.

But it was her Dumbledore-esque attitude that annoyed Harry the most. The girl had the annoying habit of telling people what to do, and she had the peculiar habit of thinking she knew what was best for everyone else when in fact she had no idea what the situation was because she didn't care enough to bother with researching the matter. It was very frustrating, condescending, and arrogant. A prime example was when Granger tried to meddle with house elves. While Harry agreed with her about the fundamentals and knew she was right about the mistreatment of house elves, he didn't agree with how she'd gone about doing her homework; as soon as SPEW appeared in their fourth year, he had gone straight to the house elves themselves and asked them some questions. While Granger might have her heart in the right place, and even that was dubious since she constantly demeaned the wizarding customs and giving her more enemies in the process because she could not shut her stupid mouth, she had almost killed the elves with those stupid clothes of hers.

So, every night Harry would summon them when Granger had gone to bed and he'd destroyed them to stop the house elves from losing their powers from the bond they had to Hogwarts. Granger, who had never really been the suspicious type, believed the house elves were being freed, and she didn't seem to give too much thought that without the elves all of the students would not have their laundry done, their meals prepared and the castle clean because there was no way that Argus could have managed it since the castle was too big (Harry had gone out of his way to befriend the old caretaker, and he had used his expertise to make the man a rather basic runic wand that allowed him to use the school's ambient magic to help him with his job - while Argus had been disappointed the wand wouldn't make him a wizard, he had been grateful enough to give Harry access to the tunnels and secret passageways that the marauders didn't know about), and then the stupid girl would have been on the receiving end of a lot of scorn.

Harry was surprised seeing her here. "I'd have thought you would have been working under Dumbledore," he said, putting emphasis on the word under, and making the other muggleborns chuckle and snicker when they'd caught the double meaning. Hermione needed a moment to replay when he'd said and her signature glare made him chuckle, but he quickly went on. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for work! Ron broke up with me, said he wanted a pureblood wife instead of a muggleborn," she snapped.

Harry snickered. "Are you surprised?" He asked. "Ron Weasley, that prick? You actually went out with him?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Hermione ground out, not liking having to spill out her personal business to anyone, especially Harry Potter. "What happened to you? Everyone in the magical world thinks you're dead."

"A relationship doomed from the start, I learnt more about the Weasley family in the shadows; Percy was a lackey to anyone in authority, much like you, the twins were bullies at the best of times, Ronald was a greedy, insecure little fucker who had more teeth than brain cells, and Ginny was a slut. Molly was a greedy bitch who was prejudiced to anything less than pure," Harry laughed. "Do they really think I'm dead? Good," he said. "I'd hoped that con would work."

"Why did you want them to think you were dead? I mean, I get it now, the wizarding world is too backwards-"

"It wasn't that!" Harry snapped. "I'd gotten too big in the magical world by the time 4th year finished, I was too noisy. Media attention, howlers for using powerful and dangerous magic against the dragon, the Yule Ball, the second task where the idiots floundered because I wasn't stupid enough to reveal who I cared about, Dumbledore poking his fucking nose in my business, Voldemort- it was all too much. After dealing with Dork Lord, I faked my own death."

Taken by surprise by the rant, Hermione whispered, "How did you do it?" She was curious about how he'd managed to do it.

"After Voldemort was killed, I knew the wizarding world would look to me to solve their problems; Dumbledore was put on the spot with Grindelwald, I felt the wizarding world would benefit from sorting out their own problems on their own. I had my own plans to live my life, so when the bastard and his followers were dead, I was left in a graveyard full of corpses. I extracted some of my blood, flesh and hair and bits of my clothes and scattered them around a bit after blasting a patch of earth and burnt it, and I triggered the cup that brought me to the graveyard in the first place," Harry explained; it wasn't a very well worded summary, but since he wasn't going to go into detail about what happened that night, and he was going to stun and modify Hermione's memory anyway, he didn't see the need to go into too much depth.

"After I'd finished, I walked on foot to the nearby village. I broke into one of the houses and stole some food, fresh clothes, and then I left to get as far away from the point of arrival as I could, and I used magic to get to Gringotts. I cleared my vault out, and I left. Simple as that," he finished, shrugging indifferently as he looked to see what her reaction would be. Granger would be surprised he would go to such lengths in order to hide, but truthfully it was the best option available, he just had no intention of telling her how hard it was.

He went silent for a second as he remembered that battle.

After Voldemort was killed, the horcruxes were destroyed, the Death eaters gone themselves, killed because they'd been too slow during the fight between him (Harry) and Lord Voldemort, or had died when their magic had been drained, Harry had been exhausted. He had used some very old magic, spells that Voldemort had not been expecting and had been ill-prepared for; it was clear that while Voldemort had travelled the world during his youth and had explored so many places where magic flourished in order to learn from others how to be unbeatable, he had failed to keep up with the latest advances in knowledge.

Harry's parents had known that tombs hidden by magic were virtually impossible for a wizard to find, but while a few of the spells Harry had used against Voldemort were easy for him to avoid, others weren't and the damage to the graveyard showed just how far the Dark Lord's knowledge of magic extended. It was clear from the spells he used that the Dark Lord had visited several places where Gravestones had been blasted to pieces, the statue Pettigrew had secured Harry to was scattered all over the place, and there were great pits in the ground from where some of the gravestones had been blown up with explosions loud enough to not only wake the dead but concuss them.

Harry had been lying on the ground, panting with exertion. He had never needed to exert himself like this before, and he was just grateful the spells his parents had burnt into his brain had made him more than a match for their murderer. He didn't bother smiling in remembrance as he remembered the surprise on Voldemort's ophidian like face when he was forced to avoid or block some of the more dangerous ancient spells. Harry was a bit disappointed by Voldemort, while the man had a good repertoire when it came to spells, he wasn't very good at going out of his way to seek more.

He was just glad it was over and all the horcruxes were destroyed, and with them so were the Death eaters. Good. Harry doubted that in his current state he'd be able to take on a 12 year old Hogwarts student, but he knew he'd need to use magic again soon.

For now he just rested, but he kept his senses aware in case one of the Death eaters had survived - even without magic, they could and would still be dangerous - and tried to regain his strength. But while he would have preferred just resting here, he knew he had to keep moving; the fight between him and Voldemort had been loud, but he couldn't see any sign of the muggles who lived nearby coming to investigate, but he knew that eventually the graveyard would be swarming and he didn't want to be present when they arrived.

Sighing deeply, Harry closed his eyes and tried to push past the pain he was feeling and staggered to his feet, groaning with pain as he tottered around, cursing the acromatula he'd encountered in the maze for injuring him there, and he also cursed that moron Hagrid for being responsible for his pet monstrosities out in the maze.

He picked up his wand, running his fingers lightly over its cracked surface. The wand was custom made and very powerful, and he wondered just how much more life it had left and he looked around, his mind racing. The wizarding world would eventually discover what had happened here and when they did they'd forget all about those articles written by Rita Skeeter, and put him up on a pedestal. Harry shuddered as he remembered finding that chocolate frog card of Dumbledore, who was famous for so many things. Harry had no intention of going the same way, he didn't like being famous for being the only survivor of the night his parents were murdered. He didn't want the attention, especially since he had no intention of others knowing about his extracurricular activities.

But thinking of everyone becoming Colin Creevy, following him around, asking him questions, taking pictures…..It made him feel physically sick, or was that the exhaustion?

The more he dwelled on the subject, the more Harry realised he needed to make a plan to escape, and there was one sane solution to the problem. He would have to fake his own death, and looking around the graveyard he knew the perfect way to do it. He fired some blasting spells, some of them high powered and some low powered at the ground and launched a few fire spells - not the incendiary spell, but more powerful ones - and when he was finished, he came to the complicated part; staging the scene for his death. He flicked his wand over himself and extracted a single pint of his blood, and he began splattering it around in one of the small craters he'd made. Dizzy because of the pain, Harry tore off pieces of his clothes and dropped them into the crater before coming to the painful part. Preparing himself mentally for the pain, he used his wand to remove pieces of his flesh and let them fall into the crater before slicing out some of his hair and then set them whole thing alight before canceling the flames. Wincing with the pain, Harry bandaged the injuries - it was a crude job, but it was the best he could do for now.

Cedric Diggory's dead body was lying a good distance away, his body had been slashed with some pieces of debris and spell damage, but overall his body didn't look that badly damaged. Harry looked at the boy's body, wishing that Diggory hadn't grabbed hold of the trophy. The stupid fool, if one of them had touched the wretched thing it would have been a victory for Hogwarts. But no, the idiot had to buy into those stupid and worthless house rivalries, and now he was dead. Harry was just glad Peter Pettigrew was dead now.

Sighing he levitated the Tri-Wizard trophy, inwardly wondering if the organisers and judges had thought the whole thing was worth it, but then the tournaments of the past had had to deal with the deaths of several contestants over the years, one more shouldn't make any difference now. Harry settled the cup into Cedric's grasp and the portkey kicked in and Cedric's body disappeared. Harry wondered for a moment how the Wizarding world would take it before deciding it didn't matter, he had studied the spells placed on the maze that had been grown on the grounds, and knew that as soon as the cup had been removed from the pedestal the maze would disappear, revealing the winner.

It didn't take much for Harry to imagine the outcry Cedric's corpse would bring, but they would see the portkey, and they'd examine it and find out where the other travel point was, and then they'd come here. Harry didn't know how he'd managed it but he found the energy to somehow leave the graveyard and walked away until he came down to a village.

Harry shook his head and refocused on the conversation with Granger; most of the details were irrelevant now anyway. He snorted and went back to his table, but Granger didn't seem to take the hint Harry didn't want to speak to her.

He'd just sat down at his table again when he realised she was in the seat opposite him while life returned to the restaurant now the drama was over and done with. He groaned quietly, under his breath, when he caught sight of her 'I must know what you know because I deserve to know' expression on her face.

"What do you want now?" he asked in exasperation.

"I want you to talk to me properly for a start, but I want to know more about how you've managed to survive for so long," Granger glared at him; Harry wondered if the girl knew she was making it harder for herself to get the answers she felt she deserved, she certainly wasn't using honey, that was for sure.

Looking down regretfully at the remains of his pizza on the plate, Harry nodded, slipping out his wand without the irritating girl noticing and placed it on his knee after crossing his legs, he then folded his arms and tried to look as relaxed as possible. He then grabbed a piece of the pizza and took a chunk out of it. He watched Granger as he chewed.

"What do you want, Granger? I haven't got all day," he asked, trying to project a more patient manner to the girl who had done nothing but bloody irritate him.

Realising that her manner was not helping matters, Hermione had to fight hard to rein in her usual interrogative technique of simply bullying a target into submission. She didn't know what Potter had been doing since leaving Hogwarts, but she wanted to know. She wasn't sure why but there was just something about the other muggleborn that intrigued her, and she remembered nagging him a lot during their time. While she knew she'd do that still, she decided to be more diplomatic this time around.

"My parents aren't helping me find work, not unless them making me a receptionist at their surgery counts, I just need to find work," she said, hoping this approach worked, "can you talk to Lee about giving me work?"

"Ah. After the way you spoke to him, I would be very surprised if he offered you anything," Harry replied before putting his cards on the table, he wasn't in the mood for games with Granger after so long. "But that's not what you want to talk about, is it?"

Annoyed and surprised Potter had seen through her so quickly, Hermione back peddled. "I just want to know why, why did you really leave?" she whispered. "You were an icon to the magical world, yet you left it."

Harry laughed scornfully. He couldn't help himself. "An icon? Do you even hear yourself? That might have been how they'd seemed to you, but I saw the scorn and disgust they had for me; I was a muggleborn, a mudblood," he sneered the hated word that every muggleborn had to endure in the wizarding world, and he wasn't too surprised when he heard the grumbles nearby as they heard him say that word, "I received twice as many threats and hatred from the wannabe Death eaters, and several times I had to use spells to slip by unnoticed."

He hadn't meant to drop the last one, afraid that Granger would accuse him of using Dark magic simply because she would think he had used dangerous spells in order to hide, and he quickly moved on before she accused him of becoming the next Voldemort. "Now, I know you are not stupid," Harry said, "Granger, but you must have seen the way things were at Hogwarts; I wasn't an icon to anybody but the muggleborns, and even that didn't help."

Penny and Katie came over. "Do you want anything more, Harry?" Katie asked.

Harry looked down at what was left of his meal, just a few crumbs and pieces of crust, then he smiled back up at her. "I'm done, thanks Katie," he replied. Katie smiled and picked up the plate, and she was about to leave when Hermione stuttered, "Katie? Katie Bell? What're you doing here? I thought you were playing professional Quidditch?"

If Harry had been scornful then Katie was positively scathing towards Hermione. "Goes to show what you really know about people, doesn't it Hermione? Quidditch was just a hobby to me, a means of making friends and having fun. It was never a potential job, and besides I didn't want to spend every waking moment caring about stupid games all the time; what if I had an accident? I would need to pay hospital bills, stuff like that."

"I-I didn't realise," Hermione whispered, she was surprised by how nasty her old housemate was towards her, Potter was to be expected, but not Katie Bell-

Penny Clearwater decided at that point to get involved. She didn't want to ask Granger anything, she remembered the girl from school, she had made muggleborns suffer even more with the way she went on about magical tradition. While many agreed with her, Granger didn't realise or simply didn't care one bit what she was doing was affecting everyone else. "Do you want anything to eat or drink?"

Hermione glanced at her, "Just a water please. Hold on. Penelope Clearwater? You work here? That's not fair-!"

"What's not fair?" Penny snapped back at her, annoyed. "The fact I've gotten work before you have? Wake up, for the first time in your life! Nothing is fair, not life, not anything! I had a perfect education like you did, I thought I had prospects out in the Wizarding world, but you know what? I was wrong. We all were," Penny's angry hand was like a pissed off and terrified rattlesnake rearing its head back, "because we hadn't bothered to do our research and keep up with our normal education; for some it was harder than others, but we could have made the effort."

If Penny's hand was like a pissed off rattlesnake, her shaking voice was like the rattlesnake's tail as it vibrated with barely held down rage. "I came here looking for work, but like you now I couldn't get a job-"

"Penny-" Lee had come over, hand held up, pleading. "Don't-"

"But I had to become a prostitute just to make ends meet! Sorry Lee, but this little girl needs to know what life can really mean for a muggleborn," Penny added sheepishly.

Lee nodded at her. That was what many a muggleborn liked about Lee. He was a straight up honest guy and an all round good boss, but he had limits to what he could take, and since Granger had spent more than 12 minutes getting on his nerves with her persistent attitude he decided to bend the rules and let Penny stay on.

"It's okay," Lee said to her kindly, though he did send a glare at Granger, who was looking at the older girl with something like pity and shock.

"You're a prostitute? How, I thought there were dozens of muggleborn businesses both in and out of the magical world?" Granger whispered.

"I made the mistake of dating Percy Weasley," Penny replied simply before letting it all come out. "Percy and I had our own ideas of what a relationship should be; for me a relationship is a partnership where we would work and live together, and have fun. Ideally, Percy should have recognised my skills and my talents, but he didn't. Percy was never very smart when it came to other people, all his talents seemed to stem from brown nosing and simpering around people in authority, just like you. Anyway, Percy's view of a marriage was the polar opposite of mine. To him, the perfect model of a marriage was identical to the one his parents have, so basically I would be a stay at home mum, crapping out kids and just cooking his dinners without a spark of life."

Harry silently held out his hand to soothe Penny's feelings. He remembered Percy and Penny's relationship at Hogwarts, and he remembered thinking that Percy had better know how lucky he was, but it turned out the spineless piece of shit wouldn't know anything better than a gold plated hole puncher even if it wandered into his life.

Penny speared Granger with a glare. "Imagine it, Granger," she whispered though she had the attention of everyone in the restaurant. "Not having a life of your own, never being able to go out into the muggle world to see the sights- my parents may have tolerated me for the seven years I attended Hogwarts, but they made it very clear they were only putting up with me and paying my Hogwarts tuition so then they'd get rid of the 'freak!'" The impact of the last word was felt by everyone in the restaurant, and Hermione found herself looking around at the angry and saddened faces even as everyone grumbled and muttered under their breaths how they felt about the hated name.

"When Percy told me about his plans and how I was included in them as a wife to be seen and not heard, not allowed to have a job and a life of my own, I told him no. I left him, but that wasn't the end of it. Do you know why? Percy was taken under the arm of Dolores Umbridge, a known pureblood supremacist who hated muggleborns and worked with some of the former Death eaters. When I left Percy, he showed his true colours and revealed that he was a pureblood bigot, but to him I was nothing more than a whore. When I left he didn't see any reason to hide his true nature, and he went to Umbridge, and together they hounded me out of the wizarding world, with the vacuum created by the death of the Death eaters it was paradise for the remaining and unmarked pureblood supremacists, who had been spending most of their time hounding muggleborns out of magical Britain for years. But when I left I didn't have anything. I'd spent most of my cash just trying to escape, and what little I had was transferred into muggle money, but it wasn't enough, so I spent my time looking for work. I came to this restaurant, but there was nothing. I had been turned down so many times and now I was tired of it, so I became a prostitute after going to a brothel that was run by another muggleborn who had sick taste."

Harry noticed Katie glaring at Granger, and guessed the other girl didn't want the idiot know it all to ask whether it had happened to her as well, but he had no intention of saying a word that drew Granger's attention to their former house-mate. But Penny seemed to have no trouble speaking for everyone, not just herself, to Granger about the realities of their prospects.

"Penelope, I swear I didn't know, but you do know its because of him-" she pointed at Harry, who looked at her surprised, "that you're in this mess!"

Harry stiffened when he realised what she was talking about. "Don't blame me for killing all the Death eaters, and giving the pureblood idiots a reason to evict the muggleborns Granger," he snapped, "it's been happening for years. Some muggleborns are luckier than others and have managed to set up businesses in the wizarding world away from the Diagon shopping district. When Penny left them, more and more muggleborns were leaving, but a few stayed."

Lee saw that Granger was about to open her mouth and decided to compromise with her. "Look, Miss Granger, I will let you stay here and join my accountancy team," he whispered, surprising her and several others but Harry guessed it was so then Lee could have the chance to educate her on the real world.

But Hermione Granger was instantly suspicious. "But you told me you didn't want me," she argued, "you said all your jobs have been filled."

Harry sighed under his breath at Granger's need to be difficult, so he took out his wand. "Obliviate!" he intoned before the girl could move, mentally selecting which memories to erase while keeping others.

In the moment where Granger's mind was more open to suggestion, Harry carefully selected his instructions. "You have been selected for a job in accountancy in the restaurant. You are grateful and you're ready for work."

* * *

"I'm not sure if that was a good idea," Lee commented to Harry later when the pair of them were in the office.

After Hermione's memory had been modified, Harry and Lee had gone to the office where they could speak. Lee was one of Harry's biggest fences, so in front of the pair of them was a large pile of jewellery and a few other odds and ends Harry had picked up.

"I had to do it, otherwise we'd have been arguing all night," Harry replied, but inwardly he was regretting what he'd just done to Granger's mind. He had no idea if the irritating girl had studied occlumency at some point, he knew she had a love for studying different forms of magic, so it was a risky gamble but he didn't want Albus Dumbledore staking out Lee's restaurant just to catch him out, though why he didn't know since Voldemort was dead, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Granger had always been a rule abiding snot. She would bow down to authority no matter who it was as soon as they had proven to her they were an authority figure, and even in a world where muggleborns were sometimes quietly hounded out of the magical world (he had found out Granger's pureblood enemies had used their newfound influence to get revenge on her for beating their scores at school), Granger would know of the interest Dumbledore had had in him, Harry Potter.

Harry didn't want to meet the old man ever again and he didn't want his freedom taken away from him because of Granger's need to talk to authority figures.

Lee sighed and let the matter drop. Personally he was glad Harry had used the memory charm since it meant Dumbledore wouldn't nose around in his businesses. The new problem he had was making sure Granger didn't get many ideas about what the business entailed. "You'll have to contact me beforehand so then I can keep her occupied," he said, "that way you don't have to worry about her seeing you and getting back to the old man."

"Thanks, Lee," Harry said.

Lee sorted through the pile on the desk. "I'll talk to my contacts about shifting this lot, you should receive some money in the next few days. Do you want me to send it to you direct?"

"No. Send it to my PO box, in Camden," Harry replied quickly.

Alastor 'Mad eye' Moody might have been paranoid and a little crazy, and that was before Harry discovered later on when he'd gone in-depth after Voldemort's death to see what was happening that Moody was actually Barty Crouch Junior, a Death eater who turned out to be the Death eater who was responsible for him being dropped into the tournament in the first place.

But Moody's paranoia was amazing to him because there seemed to be no extent to how paranoid he was, and while Harry believed most of the things the fake Moody had come out with to fool everybody else was excessive and more than a little mad, he had to admit he had some good ideas.

Lee nodded, unaware of what was going through Harry's mind at the time. "Okay, Harry I'll sort it out now," he said and shoved the pile into a pouch and put it into a drawer.

* * *

What do you think?


	6. Chapter 6 A Favour

Hello everyone! I'm not dead, I'm still very much alive, but I've had a busy month, so please cut me some slack.

* * *

A Favour.

A few days after meeting Granger at the club, spending time on the streets and pickpocketing from unobservant people, Harry was surprised when he received a text from Lee so soon after he'd been at the club a few days before. It just said "Come Quickly - Lee." But while he was understandably surprised Lee wanted to see him so soon, and curious about why if it was so urgent as it was hinted in the text Lee hadn't just told him in the club days ago, but Harry guessed something so unusual happened that Lee needed to see him now.

The text came at around 9pm. For a few moments he was prepared to just ignore the text for tonight and wait until morning, but he knew Lee better than that, he knew the older man would probably not be very happy. After securing his flat and warding it against potential burglars who'd take advantage of his absence, Harry hurried to Lee's club. He decided to use the Underground to get there instead of using apparition and saving him the journey and using his Oyster card, but he needed the time to think about what Lee could want.

As he stood on the platform waiting for the train, Harry grunted as he was jostled slightly by the crowd of commuters, wishing that the architects and the builders of the platform had used the same 'future proof' mindset used in the design and construction of Aldgate East station, that way the stations built on the Underground would make sure crowds never happened, but this far down underground made it hard to expand the platforms. While Harry was mentally wondering and cursing about the brains of the architects and builders of the Tube, the train roared in but he let it go since it was so much more crowded then the platform he was standing on was. It would seem like walking across the Highlands of Scotland with a dog walker a hundred feet away being a crowd. Harry sighed and leaned against the wall wearily as he glanced up at the ceiling clock and saw the next train was due in another 2 minutes, but he decided to take the time to think while he waited.

Something big must have happened for Lee to want his help but truthfully Harry didn't see what it could be since the pair of them worked alone and didn't really need help from anyone. But Harry genuinely had no idea why Lee was calling him and why he had worded it so urgently. Lee was much older and experienced than Harry, but his expertise wasn't the same, yet he was capable and good at thinking on his feet. He shouldn't have to call anyone, but Harry had been called by the man before over the years but always for something less urgent. This was the first time Lee had ever worded a text so urgently.

What did he want? Kicking himself mentally for not texting the man back and getting a pseudo straight answer, Harry boarded the next train and he managed to find a seat nearest the door, but he had to spend the journey with a middle aged woman who began yapping in his ear, pleased she had an audience to speak to at last and completely oblivious to the notion that Harry truly didn't care about her husband, her dogs, her son, her life, her work, her hobbies, or her holidays to Cork, Devon, Cornwall, Marseilles and Sydney. He had more things on his mind than the limited brain cells of such a boring woman. But he had to spend the next three minutes with her voice buzzing in his ear like a mosquito, and he was considering using his wand to cast a mild stinging hex to shut her up - the hex would wear off, and while there was the risk people would see it everyone was stuffed into the carriage so the chances were good his spell would be anonymous - so he was over the moon when the train finally arrived at his stop. As he stood up and someone was about to sit down, Harry touched the man's arm and leaned forwards to say, "Don't sit there, she'll bore you to death with her yapping."

After leaving a clearly scandalised woman in his wake, Harry hurried out of the station towards Lee's club. When he arrived, he wasn't surprised to find the place full of customers.

Katie saw him. "He's waiting for you," she said, "he's been coming out of his office every minute asking if you're here."

Harry rolled his eyes and then saw the rather harried expression on Katie's face, and then quickly asked the young woman to let him go to Lee's office. She took him there, and completely ignoring the KNOCK BEFORE COMING IN SIGN on the door, Harry just walked in, not in the mood for games, and besides when he walked into the room he wasn't surprised Lee was completely alone in the office. Why, if he was waiting for someone, would he have someone in the office with him?

Lee jumped a foot in the air when the door slammed against the wall, making a few of the framed pictures on the wall rattle, but Harry wasn't in the mood for niceties. "What do you want Lee?" he asked without preamble.

"Couldn't you have knocked?" Lee snapped as his blood pressure returned to normal. But when he saw the irritation in Harry's eyes he knew he had better get on with things. Quick. He knew like everyone else who was close to Harry how bad his temper could be, and how quick it could flare. "But I suppose I owe you an explanation."

"Yeah, you'd better," Harry growled under his breath, but he knew Lee could hear him. But inwardly he was smirking and laughing - he wasn't really that angry with the hustler in front of him, he was curious about what the big thing was, so he had decided to play the angry card. It worked every time - Lee fell for it each time, hook, line, and sinker.

A few years ago, Lee and Harry had met with another muggleborn wizard and a witch. They wanted Lee and Harry to help them with a smuggling job, but they had made the mistake of being rude and pushed Lee and Harry's tempers to the limits. Harry knew they hadn't meant to be that rude, but they had touched on some very sensitive subjects, and he had lost his temper. To cut a long story short the aftermath of his temper required Lee close down half of his club for a week so he could repair it properly - most of it was cosmetic, easily fixed with magic, but with the muggle side compromised he had needed to demand the services of a builder. Harry had paid half of the bill, but he had warned the couple that if they ever involved him again he would kill them if they ever treated him like that again.

But Lee had learnt over the years how quickly he could get mad if he was pushed. Harry didn't like coming across as a hotheaded brat, but he took things a few steps further, he knew enough torture curses to make Lee understand how dangerous he was. It might have been petty, but Harry didn't like people playing games with him, and besides he had learnt over the years sometimes fear as well as kindness was good motivator. All he had to do was just give a small subtle warning of his 'displeasure' and Lee got to the point. It was particularly useful when the man didn't get to the point at once.

Lee cleared his throat, thinking that maybe he should offer the other wizard a drink but thought better of it and decided to talk. "I've got a job for you Harry," he started before going on more quickly. "Have you heard of another muggleborn wizard called Jack Nettle?"

Harry sighed. Typical. "Lee, if you've sent an urgent text to me to get me here about some competitor then you can handle it yourself. Why would you need a burglar in the first place?"

"To get something. You have skills I don't. What do you know about him, Harry?"

Harry sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. "John Nettle, expelled from Hogwarts for supposedly causing problems to pureblood students. Dumbledore expelled him because as he was getting older and way past retirement age he didn't bother his usual spiel about forgiveness. Besides Nettle had decided to fight back against the prejudice - where muggleborns usually submitted to pureblood prejudice, he didn't - he lashed out and had gotten into dozens of fights, but Dumbledore had always let him off with warnings. But the pureblood students became tired and they framed Nettle for several crimes, including rape. Dumbledore was pushed into a corner, but whether or not he had already planned to get rid of Nettle is unknown. He was expelled, but he ran off before anyone could wipe his memory of the magical world, and he had managed to buy a second wand and a pensieve for his memories. I have no idea why he bought that particular item, though it could be he foresaw his own expulsion and prepared for it because he didn't want to lose his memories of magic. After being expelled rumours in the muggleborn net circulated that his family had already disowned him and moved away, leaving him alone, but nothing is certain since he hasn't confirmed the rumours. Nettle then opened a club and a restaurant in the trendier parts of the city, then he began opening a small chain of them. He doesn't plan on making it a big business, just a small, legit business that allows him to launder his more illegal businesses. He is a smuggler and he runs a murder for hire business, and he always covers his tracks so then the police don't suspect anything. Have I missed anything out?"

"No, you haven't," Lee replied, but something in his manner was off as if he'd expected a bit more information, but Harry didn't really care. Lee had better tell him everything or else there would be hell to pay, and while he depended on Lee as a fixer the man should know better about making stupid mistakes. In a flash the disappointed air was gone and Lee was suddenly all business, Harry couldn't help but think that it was about time he got serious.

"You're basically correct - Nettle's line of work is similar to mine, only his is a bit disgusting. But he is making a lot of noise, noise that I don't want. So I went to see him."

Harry swallowed the impulse to scream "What were you thinking?" and sat there stoically.

"I wanted to discuss our two businesses, but Nettle said he has no interest in being my rival. The meeting took ten minutes, I'd wanted it to take longer, but before I saw him there was a man in the office who handed Nettle a glass vial with a memory inside it. The memory was still one his desk during the meeting, and he clearly wished I wasn't there so he could hide it or put it away. I've done some digging and I managed to question one of the muggleborns who work for Nettle about the memories. The woman didn't know anything about the memories and I think her memory was tampered with. But I do know that Nettle has a safe inside his offices and its alarmed with a very tricky ward."

"And you want me to break into it?"

"Yes."

Harry thought for a second. "Have you questioned other employees about Nettle's business? He might have other plans you aren't aware of since he might be tampering with the memories of his employees."

"I'm not an idiot Harry, I did speak to several of Nettle's employees - a few of them were muggles - and they all reacted the same way the witch did. They had clearly done things and had their memories tampered with. I only found out about the safe by chance because one of Nettle's employees is trusted enough to know the finer details."

"Why do you want these memories so badly anyway? You have your own business and Nettle doesn't seem to care much about muscling in on your operation, so why go to this much trouble?"

"It's not just the memories, it's how he runs his business. There are some things I just don't understand, and I want to see if there's any chance I can muscle in on his businesses."

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. He wished he'd never come now. "Lee," he tried to protest.

"I know you don't do this type of work, Harry, but please do me this favour. You owe me after all," Lee interrupted, but he knew he was sinking very low demanding one of the numerous favours he had gained from Harry over the years.

Harry was annoyed, but he had to admit the man had a point. Finally, he sighed. "Okay," he conceded. "I'll do it. But it might take me some time to get in," he warned. The last thing he wanted was to tamper with anymore's memories. Who knew what the consequences would be if he did that?

* * *

For the next fortnight Harry was busy before he committed the burglary in Nettle's club. One of the reasons was because he knew that Lee's meeting with the other muggleborn had taken place shortly before Lee had texted him, so while Lee might be the prime suspect if Nettle's was the suspicious type of man he wouldn't know for sure if a fortnight passed. Harry imagined Nettle was suspicious, but he hoped the man wouldn't look at Lee.

When Harry studied the club he was surprised by how ineffective the wards were. Sure, they were better than what some witches and wizards were capable of, but since this particular wizard had been expelled from Hogwarts early then he hadn't received all the knowledge of how to establish them correctly.

Harry's knowledge of curse breaking gave him an edge in setting and bringing down wards, but his knowledge was second hand and gained from first hand experience but when he studied the wards around Nettle's club he was disappointed slightly though he wasn't surprised by the lack of quality. He could easily have brought the wards down, but his natural pragmatism and cautious attitude stopped him. He didn't know for sure if Nettle had put something into the wards, a trap of some sort. He had no idea if that was true or not, so he decided to wait and get inside the club. There were so many things he didn't know about like the layout of the club, the safe's combination, the wards in the office, and whether or not there were traps inside the office.

The fortnight gave him plenty of time to learn all about those things, and like Lee he interrogated the employees, but unlike the other man he used legilimency on the staff. The state of their brains wasn't too severe like that unfortunate muggle that the stupid Ministry had somehow got involved in helping administrate the Quidditch World Cup and had his memory wiped so many times it was a miracle he wasn't a vegetable at the end of it, though after what had happened to him afterwards was proof of how thick the Ministry was.

But as Harry probed the minds of Nettle's staff he wasn't surprised to find that many of them suffered from headaches and mild cases of confusion - typical symptoms of the memory charm's ill effects - but what annoyed him was how he'd done the same to various muggleborns. Reading their minds wasn't enlightening since Harry had encountered muggleborns who'd left the wizarding world over the years. Their stories are a variant of the same problem - for some of them, they'd left Hogwarts with hope the rest of the magical world would be more open minded to letting them work, only to find they were even more dead set against their jobs taken by undeserving muggleborns.

He genuinely didn't understand why muggleborns were so optimistic about getting paid work in the magical world when it was clear getting a job from a pureblood was like a seal asking a shark not to eat it. But he guessed that after getting bullied by so many pureblood students over the years they had hoped the prejudice faded as they became older, but they quickly found it was wrong to think that.

Harry knew that some muggleborns were smart enough to realise that they weren't going to get a job with the ministry or with those smaller companies, so they joined other muggleborns or they used Gringott's resources to set up their own businesses so it wasn't a completely dismal future. For other muggleborns like Nettle and the ones who were employed by him, Lee, Katie, Penny and Harry, the muggle world was their only safe haven. Harry knew that the pureblood elite tolerated the muggleborn businesses knowing full well that only 'mudbloods' would use them, so there was symmetry.

But not everyone could set up a business - Penny was an exception since she had been a Ravenclaw student herself, but while she was smart and intelligent Harry knew that her job at Lee's was an excuse for her own, both Harry and Lee knew that her experiences had hardened her and Katie and made them use their powers to steal secrets from Lee's clientele. Harry knew what they were doing, and he encouraged them, and he'd taught the two girls the mind arts and a few other tricks to make sure they weren't caught out.

Nettle's skills at mental manipulation were down to basic memory charms and the compulsion spell. That was it, but truthfully he was unsurprised by the lack of anything really subtle in Nettle's spell repertoire. The delicate nature of how the idiot had treated his employee's brains meant Harry had needed to keep his probing very brief and very careful but since Harry knew only too well how dangerous it was to mess with the mind, he kept his probing careful each time he did it.

It took him time to learn more about the layout of the office and the basic security, but he worked his way up after seeing and memorising the faces and names out of the minds of the staff until he came upon the right one, the employee who was so trusted by Nettle that he knew enough about the ward scheme around the safe and the combination number. It was from him that Harry learnt more about the businesses Nettle had, although even Matt Parr, the employee in question, had little to no knowledge about the bigger plans his boss had, he knew quite a lot about them. Once he took the time he investigated them all.

On the streets he saw Jack Nettle meet with several business owners, and he took photographs of them meeting together, but he didn't pay them much attention although he made sure to take photographs of them. When it came to the actual burglary he was prepared. He didn't bother with breaking in. He entered the office an hour before it was time for it to close, and he used the time to find a decent place to hide. One of the ironic things about Nettle's security plan was while he had wards stopping muggles from stealing his work and even extended to the type of muggleborn who didn't really bother studying ward theory at Hogwarts, it didn't stop powerful and experienced wizards and witches from breaking in and they definitely didn't stop wizards from using disillusionment charms from getting in. Harry wasn't sure if it was because Nettle didn't think it could happen or if was just thoughtless. But Harry still checked for traps.

Getting into the office a couple of hours after closing time was easy enough - he only had to disable a few spells that were shoddily put up - before he had to work with the wards. There was nothing really special about the ward, it was just a simple ward that lasted only a few hours, which was good enough for the purposes of Nettle, but that was it. He didn't need to go too far - why would he, he lived and set up his businesses in the muggle world, he employed muggleborns and they didn't know everything about his organisation and his security plans and it was clear they believed Nettle had more than he had. Clearly they thought he knew more than he actually did, either way he didn't care.

It took Harry no less than 10 minutes to steal the memories - he needed to bring down the alarm wards first and then the ward protecting the safe. He was pleased it was so straightforward, but then he saw the safe and grunted lowly in satisfaction before he rolled up his sleeve to stare at his pale wrist and saw written in black ink the combination numbers. One of the things Harry had never worked out from the media and the movies was why they expected every single thief and burglar to be expert safecrackers - sure, many burglars had the knowledge, but they usually went for what was visible and never really bothered learning how to crack open a safe. Timing was important for any kind of theft. Safecracking required time and equipment, some of it bulky and heavy. Harry himself had learnt a few of the basics, but one of the most easiest safecracking methods was to just get hold of the combination number and use it from there. Once he had the safe open, he used his wand to scan the inside for other hidden traps or alarm spells. He found nothing, but then he scanned the box with the memories. It was easy enough to find since it was sitting right next to a pensieve that Nettles was reputed to have taken from the magical world before he left it.

Harry found no spells on the box and so he dragged it out of the safe before he closed and locked the safe again and recast the wards on it. As he returned home on the Tube, thankful it wasn't yet midnight or early morning, he held back the urge to just open the box and see what the memories held but he waited until he returned home to his flat. Once there he unlocked the box and examined the small vials of memories. Each one of them had small white labels on them with some kind of code on them with a red, green, yellow or blue sticker on the toppers. Harry ran a finger over the codes - it was just a sequence of numbers with what looked like a small date in number form.

Harry made a note of each of the phials and put his notebook away before he put the box away in his kitchen cupboard. He'd take the damn thing to Lee in the morning, and hopefully get some proper answers. Something about those codes and the way those toppers had been labelled fired his curiosity.

* * *

"I was wondering when you were going to bring this to me," Lee commented when Harry arrived in his club the next morning with the box. Harry was considering cursing the man, uncaring if he was a friend or not, it was just the way Lee had just spoken like he had wanted the box earlier. But Harry pushed his annoyance aside - he was concerned with his mental state, he seemed to be getting annoyed each time he met with Lee. He quietly dropped the photos onto the desk.

Lee glanced at the envelope the photos were in and looked back up. "What's this?"

"Find out for yourself," Harry replied curtly as he grabbed his payment and left the club. He had planned to stay a little longer to find out what was so special about those memories, but he no longer cared. It was not his problem, and besides, he had enough double talk for one day.

He just didn't know what the consequences of stealing the memories would be.


	7. Chapter 7 Hospitalised Lee

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, just this story and the ideas behind it.

Feedback - lovely, always appreciated.

Hospitalised Lee.

Harry's phone rang while he was in Tesco getting some shopping, and it made him jump in surprise - very few people phoned Harry aside from cold callers, but he quickly pushed the surprise away and reached into his pocket for his mobile where he found 'Lee' flashing on the screen. Harry sighed, wondering what the old fool wanted this time.

"Hello Lee, what do you want now?"

But it wasn't Lee. "Harry, you need to get to the hospital, right now!"

Harry recognised the sound of Liz, Lee's wife and fellow muggleborn. "Liz? What happened to Lee, why is he in hospital?" he asked, guessing that Lee was in the hospital otherwise his wife wouldn't be phoning in his place. Lee was obsessed with making sure no-one touched his mobile. He had become more and more paranoid about such details over the years, so unless he was either dead or unconscious Liz would never have been able to ring him.

"It's….best if you come and see him for yourself, Harry," Liz replied, sounding like she was barely holding it together, not that Harry could blame her because if her husband was badly injured then it was a wonder she was still functional.

"Okay, Liz," he replied when it was clear the woman was barely holding on to her sanity. "Where's the hospital?"

* * *

Harry rushed into the reception area of the hospital and quickly saw Liz, who was pacing up and down, wringing her hands like she was trying hard not to throttle someone out of impatience and worry for her husband. "Liz?" he called.

Liz looked up, her usually warm and cheerful face grey with worry. "Harry," she cried and rushed into his arms. He felt her shake as he held her close, but he pulled away.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It happened so fast," Liz replied, shaking her head as if she had seen something that she couldn't take in. "We were going over the finances when these men appeared, and they demanded Lee hand over the phials that he'd taken."

Phials? Harry closed his eyes, but he didn't understand how Nettle was able to find out about Lee taking them so quickly, but more to the point why hadn't Nettles gone after him?

Liz saw his reaction. "What phials did they want, Harry? What happened?"

Harry didn't want to tell her, but he knew he didn't have much choice. "Lee wanted the phials, he wanted me to steal them from a man called Nettle. The phials contained memories like the type you find in the m world," he said.

"What were these memories about?" Liz asked, her voice shaking like she couldn't decide whether she should be screaming at him or fainting.

"I don't know, Lee didn't tell me. All he told me was he had done some investigating and found the muggleborns who worked for the man suffered headaches, so Nettle had wiped their memories and tampered with their minds," Harry looked around hoping no one had heard him, but fortunately no one had. "Is he awake?" he asked.

Liz shrugged, "I don't know. But if he is then I want to be there."

Harry winced at the thought of whatever fate Liz had in mind for her husband, but he couldn't blame her too much for being angry. He was angry himself, because he had not really done much homework, and he was sure he hadn't really covered his tracks so then Lee would be left alone.

Liz led him through the hospital. Harry grimaced, he had been in hospitals before, but during his time at Hogwarts, he had always hated the domain of Madam Pomfrey, he could see the similarities here only too clearly.

Hospitals were so sterile and cold, it was like a neat freak had gone into them and cleaned them to the point where you couldn't see any emotion or feeling in them, and as he followed Liz through to the room Lee was in he flinched at the patients lying awake or asleep in their beds, surrounded by a cluster of medical equipment. Seeing the heart monitors pinging made him think of all the people out there who were related or friends with the people they were hooked up to, and how they'd feel if the hearts stopped.

Harry shook his head and caught up with Liz as they stepped into Lee's room.

Harry paused, he saw the state of Lee. His face was purple and red with bruising, and one of his eyes was so swollen it was like someone had glued plums to the skin, and his legs and arms were in casts indicating they had been brutally broken. Lee's chest was rising slowly and shakily as though it had been smashed by a heavy object, which it probably had.

Almost as if he sensed someone standing over him, Lee opened his one working eye and he caught sight of the young man standing over him. A slow smile crossed his face.

"Harry," he wheezed.

"Lee. Did Nettle do this to you?" Harry asked coldly, ignoring Liz's gasp at how callous he was being; he already knew the answer, Liz describing the scene of how the attack took place, how the men involved had demanded the phials clinched it, but he wanted Lee to be honest with him.

Lee nodded slowly, wincing in agony as the pain flashed through him. "Yeah," he got out, and he began to speak, though every word was measured. "They wanted the phials."

"What's in them?" Harry asked, hoping Lee had the common sense to give him straight answers.

Lee sighed painfully and rasped out, "Nettle is a blackmailer. He isn't like those stupid fools who don't have magic," he said before taking a deep breath to use to speak again. "He learnt about the basics of the mind arts before he was expelled from Hogwarts, and he collected the right equipment - a pensieve, a wand to remove the memories when he realised he was about to be thrown out. I don't know how he was able to get away so his mind and magic could be bound and wiped like they usually are, so don't ask. All I know is Nettle has become rich and powerful because he has been using the wand to cast compulsion charms and things like that on people to give up their secrets before he wipes their memories, and depending on whether or not he can use them there and then, he stores the phials and blackmails as much as he can get."

"Nettle built his business empire on blackmail. He has agents out there gathering information about all kinds of people - officials, police officers, doctors and nurses, business leaders, and even people as mundane as office cleaners al provide him with cash. But he also uses the mind arts to put spells on people to make them into spies, so he can gather information about potential rivals. That's one of the reasons why he is becoming so big. He has been using spies, people under his control, to subtly gain information so he can muscle in on various businesses."

Liz had been listening aghast. "Surely he knows if he goes too far the Ministry will discover him? I mean, if he was expelled and managed to escape before his memory was wiped-"

"Most muggleborns learn quickly that the Ministry doesn't really care full stop," Lee interrupted, "but everyone of us who gets out and goes on to become criminals have to be careful."

"Lee's right," Harry whispered, uncaring if the man was slumped right there. "I've met muggleborns who rarely use magic, especially in front of muggles in case they're discovered. But I doubt Nettle has to worry too much, if he is subtle enough."

Liz nodded, accepting the answer. She was a muggleborn herself, but unlike her husband and Harry she only used her powers to perform minor tasks.

"Why did you want those memories in the first place?" Harry asked.

Lee groaned as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. "I wanted to have a piece of the action, Harry," he wheezed. "I'm getting old, but I have connections and contacts - those are gold dust to a young bastard like Jack Nettle. I wanted a piece of the action so then I could prove to him I could be stand against him. I've been building my network and empire up for years, I don't want them to be taken over because some little bastard with delusions of grandeur decides to take them over by forcing me to tell him my secrets and then wipe my memories so I can't remember any of it, and then blackmail me at some point."

"Nettle, I've worked out, works in the long term. He doesn't think about tomorrow, let alone three minutes ahead, he looks to the long term - we're talking years, and he plans accordingly. He gathers secrets and intelligence on people the way the spooks in MI5 and MI6 do, and it takes him years to find all he wants. Sometimes he is direct, sometimes he is subtle, and he compels people to do the spying for him and then report back, but when he looks at someone he wants to deal with, he opens a file on them and spends years investing a lot of time on learning all their dirty little secrets."

"You and Liz both know some of mine, Harry, how long do you think I'll last? Nettle probably has a file on me already, and he's probably filling it with all kinds of stuff. I've done so many things I do not want to admit to, because most of those events helped build my empire. I don't want to lose it. Nettle is even muscling in on one or two muggleborns, he's done it in York and even as far South as Cornwall. I wanted the memories so then I could blackmail whoever those memories related to, and maintain my empire by absorbing other businesses."

Lee broke off, twisting in clear agony, though Harry desperately wanted to punch the man hard in the shoulder for this mess. "How did Nettle even know you had the memories?"

Lee shook his head painfully. "I don't know," he wheezed. "A tracking charm, perhaps, something even you can't detect, Harry. I don't know."

"Does he know WHO took them in the first place from the safe?" Harry asked, suddenly worried he would be receiving a visit such as this.

Lee shrugged only to wince in pain. "I don't know," he repeated, "maybe, so I'd keep an eye open if I were you."

"What did you do with the phials?"

"They're hidden," Lee looked firmly at him. "Harry, I am not giving them up."

This was too much for Liz. "What?" She cried; Harry hoped her shout didn't attract too much attention, even if a doctor or a nurse didn't overhear them about magic, all they had to do was gossip and it would definitely lead to trouble they didn't need or even want. His hands went to his wand just in case.

"Lee, those bastards attacked you, they might have killed you," Liz said, her tone giving away her hysteria. "They still can. If they can do what you say they can, don't you think they won't find out where you are now? Just give them back, it's not worth it."

Lee looked at Harry and Liz seriously. "I can't give them up," he hissed through the pain, but Harry no longer felt any sympathy for the man anymore; his stupidity was the only thing that Harry could use to kick the anger he was feeling towards himself.

He should have spent more time investigating Nettle, but truthfully he was more focused on committing thefts than worrying about niggling things who happened to be doing what; it was so boring having to listen to all the brags and boasts about how great and amazing someone was when there were others saying precisely the same thing.

He had stupidly thought Nettle fitted neatly into the category. Now he knew better.

* * *

Jack Nettle was busy pouring over the paperwork from his various businesses since it gave him something constructive to achieve while he tried to control and redirect his anger towards the phials that had been stolen. He had been furious when he'd discovered the safe containing the memories were gone. He knew it was stupid keeping the memories here, but sometimes he did that because he had business meetings with the people he planned to take over in the long term, and he liked to be able to review the memories here rather than his home.

When he'd activated the tracking charm, he'd invented himself, one which was virtually unidentifiable next to the conventional tracking spells, he'd been surprised to find the phials were centred around a business he was interested in but saw as too excessive to deal with at the present time.

He had made a mistake bringing Lee into this office, but the man was a legend and Nettle had hoped to take his place - the man was getting on a bit, but now he would be nearly dead. Would be dead, Nettle corrected himself, if he has the decency to actually die in hospital.

But he would lose his phials if that happened. Some of them had taken years to get hold of, it would take even longer for him to maintain his business empire if he was going to have to replace them.

What mystified him was who had actually stolen the memories. Lee was capable of many things, but he was too old to pull something like that off, and in any case he had read the man's mind to get an idea of what he was capable of magically while he considered what to do in the later years. But he had quickly worked out Lee rarely used magic for anything, he was too complacent and comfortable sitting in his office all day long.

Someone else had done it, the question was who?

* * *

Harry's got involved in something big, but he's still got to keep his head down. Can he manage it?

PS. A Wizard Thief in America is almost finished, but please enjoy my stories.


	8. Chapter 8 Lee's secret helper

Disclaimer - I don't own anything.

As this is the last chapter, I think you should know I might write something smaller to show what Harry does after this.

Feedback would be nice.

setokayba2n- While Harry frequently uses magic, he doesn't use it more times than he should. He knows that if he uses it too much or in front of muggles, then he will be in trouble.

Lee's secret helper.

Harry left the hospital frustrated and bitterly disappointed in Lee, wondering what in the name of God had gone through his mind when he'd decided having Nettles' memory vials would be have a good idea, and not handing them over when the same guy sent around some muscle to get it back. He could understand Lee's desire to retain some of the same old power he'd held for years since he'd left Hogwarts and discovered he was better off in the muggle world, but what he couldn't understand was why he had become so seemingly stubborn.

He should have handed those vials back to Nettle's guys when they'd asked for them, instead the fool had got himself beaten up for his troubles. It still surprised him Lee had been taken down that easily, but it had been a long time since Lee had needed to defend himself, so either he'd become too cocky for his own good or he hadn't really been good at fighting to begin with, but that was his problem.

But he couldn't believe that Lee didn't seem to have any kind of self preservation whatsoever. The man had been around for decades, and yet he had been taken down so effortlessly.

Harry stood outside the hospital for a few minutes as he considered what to do next, and while he was tempted to go after Nettle even though it went against everything he had been doing for years since he'd left Hogwarts and dealt with Voldemort at the same time, he had to admit he would work better with a plan.

After lifting a hand to rub his eyes out of frustration, he was slightly surprised to find his hand wrapped around a plastic bag and he remembered he'd been shopping before Liz had phoned to tell him about Lee. He didn't have much choice, he would go home and put the shopping away and use the time to come up with a plan to deal with Nettle and protect himself, and Lee, from any further attacks. Yes, that was a better idea.

Walking away from the hospital on the way to the Underground station, Harry stepped around other pedestrians who crowded the streets and would've made it hard for him to get through if not for the compulsion charms he placed on them. Ordinarily he wouldn't use such spells on muggles in the street, but today he was in a hurry and besides after what had happened to Lee, he knew he would need to get home quickly, and besides it wasn't as if he used magic everyday, so the rule still held.

Harry knew he had to shoulder at least some of the blame for this whole mess, but he hadn't expected Nettle to have invented his own tracking charm. He'd considered inventing his own spells himself when he'd attended Hogwarts, but he hadn't taken the course thanks to Dumbledore's interference. Not for the first time Harry cursed the old wizard for constantly meddling in his life without taking the time to consider that having a background in something like arithmancy and Ancient Runes might been more beneficial than something as crap as Divination.

While he waited for the train, Harry considered his options. He didn't dare confront Nettle on his own patch even though it sounded attractive. It was bad enough Hermione Granger had met him outside Hogwarts, but if what Lee had said about Nettle was true, then Harry didn't want the knowledge that Harry Potter sometimes worked with Lee to get out.

No, he thought to himself, Nettle doesn't strike me as the type of man who would spread that kind of knowledge around unless he saw some way to benefit from it. When the train pulled into the station, Harry waited for the passengers to leave the carriage and tried unsuccessfully to find a decent seat, he wondered what he could do to stop Nettle from going after Lee again, though at this point he wished Nettle's men had killed the idiot so he wouldn't be in this mess.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he unlocked the door of his flat and walked inside, but before he closed the door everything happened so quickly. He had just put the shopping down on the floor, and was just about to close the front door when he realised someone was standing in the doorway, and the next moment he was on the ground with that someone's hands wrapped around his throat. Harry could feel the other man's knees weighing down on his chest, making it slightly difficult to breathe, but Harry couldn't help but struggle slightly.

"Where are the vials?" Harry heard the intruder shout, the loudness made him wince.

Harry guessed he should have expected something like this, but he'd been comfortable with the knowledge that Nettle and his men hadn't known anything about him, so how did this guy find him so quickly? He'd only been out shopping when Liz had phoned him. He'd find out in a minute, once he could breathe properly again.

"Get off me!"

"Where are the vials?" The intruder repeated himself. "My boss is getting impatient," he added.

Harry stopped struggling for a second when he realised that while the other man had his hands wrapped around his throat and he was being weighed down by the man on his chest, the other man wasn't squeezing his throat too tightly at all. It was clear the other man wanted him to speak clearly without suffocating, but Harry knew that either he found out about the vials or not, he could change his mind.

Usually Harry didn't dare use magic, but he had no choice. Slipping his wand out, he blasted the man off him. Harry quickly got up, pushing any discomfort aside, and pointed his wand at the other man, who looked like he was still stunned by the attack.

"How the hell did you do - you're a wizard?" The other man began to ask before he looked up and found himself looking down the length of Harry's wand.

Harry wasn't really surprised by the other man's knowledge of magic. Silently, Harry disarmed the man, sending his own wand flying away to the other side of the room. Another flick and the door closed properly. The other man looked slightly nervous of being disarmed so quickly and effortlessly by his clearly more powerful opponent. "Yeah, I'm a wizard," Harry whispered. "And so are you. Muggleborn, right?"

The other man glared at him before he nodded grudgingly. "Yeah."

"And you work for Nettle. How did you find me so quickly?"

The other man needed a moment to understand the question, but when he did he answered it with the same air of someone who didn't want to answer but had no real. "I was under a glamour charm at the hospital. Nettle had me posted there to keep an eye on Lee, but apart from his wife you were the only visitor to see him, and you were there for a while."

Harry didn't like the sound of that, if this guy went missing then Nettle would certainly tear down Lee's organisation trying to find answers, but if he just wiped the guys' memory then his secret should be safe for the time being. But he didn't like the ease this guy had just stalked him, but there was little he could do.

Lifting his wand, Harry methodically bound the man.

"W-what are you gonna do to me?" the man asked fearfully, realising that his opponent was more powerful and more dangerous than he was.

Harry ignored him and cast the legilimen's spell, thankful for one rare occasion that the mind arts weren't taught at Hogwarts like they should've been, and he tore through the man's mind. He didn't pay any attention to the man's memories growing up, nor was he particularly bothered by the memories of him going to Hogwarts though he spared a moment to look at them before continuing with his mental assault until he found the memories he was looking for. He found out this man was one of Nettle's old friends from Hogwarts, and judging from the easy way the blackmailer had brought him into the fold, it was clear the man had thoughtlessly joined Nettle's organisation.

But what interested him the most were the names of Nettle's organisation and where he was likely to find them. Harry looked deeper into the mind of the muggleborn attacker, being as gentle as he could as he went through the man's brain.

* * *

Why did things like this have to spiral out of control? Harry grumbled quietly to himself as he headed towards one of the hangouts of Nettle's gang. Disguised as an old man, though thankfully he still had the strength and speed he used as a young man, Harry hoped this night would be much more peaceful; ever since he had dealt with Voldemort and had gotten used to keeping his head down firmly, he had always tried to prevent himself from getting into messes that could lead to discovery. He had a clear idea of what he had to do, but he couldn't help but feel his plan was going to go badly wrong. He just couldn't believe things had spiralled out of control to this degree already - first Lee had been beaten to a pulp, then he'd been attacked himself, but there was little he could do about that. All he could do was to deal with Nettle quickly before things became worse.

But what he was about to do, it could mean discovery from the Ministry of Magic, if he was forced to rely on plan A for this to work out the way he wanted it to, but truthfully he wanted plan B to work the most since it didn't involve much magic to be used at all, and should be relatively safe.

Harry closed his eyes as he approached the tiny pub on a street corner that the gang frequented - he didn't know if they were already inside, but even if they weren't at least he could say he tried. The guy who'd attacked him earlier in his own home knew they came here quite a lot, so it was a good place to start.

Harry walked purposefully towards the door - he may as well get this over with - and paused when he heard the sounds of laughing and loud music. The pub sounded full, and he opened the door.

It was certainly busy, but he pushed through the throng of people holding glasses of booze while keeping his eye open for the gang members, but it was hard to see anyone in this crowd.

When he arrived at the counter, it took a moment for the barmaid to notice him. "Yes, luv," she grinned at him through lips painted a fluorescent pink, "what can I get you?"

"Glass of rum, please," Harry said, passing over a fiver.

"Coming right up."

Harry knocked some of the alcohol back, wincing at the burn before he got his change back. Turning his back on the counter, Harry studied the faces around him even as he drew his coat higher around his throat to give the impression he was an old man trying to retain whatever little warmth he had, and waited until he saw someone he recognised. But in the meantime, he looked around the pub for a moment before he returned.

It took him a while, but he didn't fancy pushing through an entire crowd again, and besides he didn't want anyone to notice him just walking around holding a glass of rum when there were seats available. Besides, from where he was standing by the counter, he could see who was coming and going, but staying in one place had downsides. It took a moment for Harry to pick out someone from the memories of the gang member who'd attacked him in his flat. Harry picked up his glass of rum and walked slowly over to him.

The gang member was sitting with a few of his friends. Harry hoped this would be as easy as it was beginning to look, but there were so many ways this could go wrong. Picking up a newspaper, Harry pretended to flick through it while he pulled out his wand from the sleeve of his coat, and he silently cast a compulsion charm at one of the gang when he was sure no one was going to walk in the way of the spell. He mentally directed one of the gang to head to the toilet in a few minutes. Harry had found the gents when he went off to have a look earlier.

For two minutes Harry waited for the gang member to arrive, and he mentally prepared himself for the encounter ahead. From what he'd gathered so far, nearly all of Nettle's gang were muggleborns themselves, though he had muggles working for him - he had to be, because while there was a myth of muggleborns being rejected by people like the Ministry and other places in the magical world, it wasn't true. Many muggleborns simply found it uncomfortable in the wizarding world, but Harry didn't know and frankly didn't care what Nettle's gang had been through.

When the gang member walked in, Harry instantly stopped him with a spell and ignoring the wide eyed look of surprise on his face, he began to gently put suggestions into the gang member's mind, trying to ignore the feeling he was using tactics Dumbledore would have used, but there was a difference between them both. Where he was only doing this the once, he couldn't help but feel that at some point, he'd be using this technique again and again. Harry sighed and concentrated on his task.

* * *

Jack Nettle arrived slowly before midnight outside a flat, his wand clasped firmly in his hand. He still found it hard to believe what he had heard from one of his underlings. Apparently the thief who'd taken the vials knew where they were being kept, and didn't care about Lee one way or another about what the consequences would be if they were given back.

Nettle fingered his wand, his mind racing as he tried to work out why someone who'd been employed by Lee was betraying him; it was possible the thief had seen the results of the beating, which even to Nettle was extreme even if it was necessary to make the old moron realise he wanted those vials back now.

But it was also possible the thief was leading him into a trap, though he couldn't see or understand how. Another thing that concerned him was the setting where the thief had confronted that member of his gang. A gents toilet was not the type of place you'd expect to meet a thief, but because it was so late when he had received the message, he hadn't really bothered to probe the man's mind to see what had happened in the gents.

What bothered him the most was how quickly it had taken for this to happen. Jack had hoped that Lee would come to his senses, and he had been preparing to visit the man in the hospital after giving him time to stew, though at first he had decided to do it as soon as visitors were allowed to see him. That way he could have gone in in the aftermath, ripped Lee's mind to pieces, and found out where the cocky sod had hidden the vials. But unfortunately he'd been held back by his business issues, and he'd decided to wait until morning, though he'd ordered some of his men to the hospital where Lee was being treated to keep an eye on him, and if they saw anyone leave who'd visited him they were to follow them in case they knew where the vials were.

He needed to get them back.

His business empire depended on their safe return.

The only problem he had now was dealing with this thief and also trying to find out who he was, how he was able to get through the security on his office so easily. Oh, he had worked out that the thief was another wizard, but the problem was he didn't know anything about this one who'd broken through his security without breaking a sweat. Besides, if he met the thief, he could either offer him a job or he'd have to kill him, but Nettle hoped it didn't come to that. While he was curious and more than a little concerned about any witch or wizard being skilled enough to get through his security, and was prepared to offer them a job, Nettle had no experience about having to deal with this.

Finally, he reached the number of the flat, and he was surprised to see the door was open. Nettle's worries about this whole thing grew, but he gently rapped his fingers on the door while he tried to peer through the gap without making it obvious.

"Come in."

Nettle swallowed and walked inside, trying to come up with a conversation at the last minute, a pitch he could put towards the thief; if he was a freelancer, then it meant he was free to work whenever, but if he was loyal to Lee…

The thief was there already, still fully dressed. The room was quite dark with only two lamps switched on. Nettle's eyes flickered over everything in the room quickly, expecting a trap while more than aware of the thief, who didn't even move an inch. Nettle studied the thief, who was lounging comfortably on the sofa.

"I think you know who I am," Nettle said, wishing he could think of something better to say, but he couldn't think of any decent way to open up.

"Jack Nettle; I know who you are," the thief replied, staring back with a polite but cool stare. It may have been late, but Nettle was still alert enough to be concerned about the stare he was getting, and he wondered if this man was even aware of his thoughts of seeing if he could get him into his gang.

"I also know why you're here," the thief said, and Jack felt his heart stop when the thief's green eyes flicked downwards to the wand clasped in his hand, now beginning to suspect it was a mistake to expose his wand to someone who was clearly another wizard. The thief didn't seem bothered though, he just took out his own wand and flicked it at the door.

For a moment, Nettle was frozen, his eyes, trying to find some way out of this situation, before he realised he wasn't going to get out of it easily.

"You have no intention of giving those vials back to me, do you?" Nettle asked, guessing what the answer would be.

"No. Your men attacked someone I have known for a long time; granted, Lee overreached himself this time, and he could very easily have been killed by your men, but I'm not going to let you go after him again," the thief said.

All of Jack Nettle's instincts were screaming at him to either run or fight, but he was curious despite himself even as he readied himself for a fight. "What did you hope to achieve by bringing me here?"

"A bit of respite," the thief replied, "for Lee and his wife. Don't blame the gang member who passed on the message to you, he will have forgotten everything I've done, including the address to my flat."

Nettle took an involuntary step back, but he quickly regained his composure enough to raise his wand, only to find himself locked in a duel with his opponent. It had been a long time since Nettle had found himself in a duel, something he had learnt during his time at Hogwarts, but he quickly realised this wizard was completely different from any other he'd dealt with. Nettle used high powered curses designed to overwhelm his opponents, but while they normally worked he had learnt how tiring it was.

But this wizard was flicking his wand in an almost bored way, as if the manner of the duel was beneath him, and that made Nettle angry, but there was little he could do about it. Also, while Nettle was resorting to a show of force, the wizard in front of him rarely used high powered curses, instead he used curses that Nettle dimly remembered as being nasty before using bigger, and more dangerous spells while casting defensive spells that blocked the worst of Nettle's curses.

To make things worse, Nettle found himself having to block some of his own curses that were sent back to him. He'd heard of this duelling technique before, but he had never seen it in practice before. Another thing that annoyed Nettle was the wizard's use of spells and charms that were used every day - for instance, the wizard used a lighting spell to shine in his face and blind him for a second before a bludgeoning curse found its way towards his leg.

Nettle became exhausted very quickly, noting with a lot of envy that the wizard didn't seem exhausted. He'd paced himself, Nettle knew that, but he wished the other was just as tired. But it looked like he was only getting started.

"Who are you?" Nettle panted as he tried to regain some of his strength so he could fight back again. "How were you able to do all this, break into my office, manipulate the mind of one of my gang, and deal with me so easily?"

"My name is Harry Potter," the wizard replied.

Nettle's eyes widened. Harry Potter? He had heard of the wizard of course, but he had never expected to hear of the legendary muggleborn, who had vanished from the magical world years ago. What was he doing here, and was he really a thief? No wonder he hadn't landed a spell on the man, after all the guy was incredibly powerful.

"And you stole my vials? Why? Surely Lee couldn't have offered you anything-"

"I owed the man a few favours," Potter shrugged his shoulders. "I don't agree with Lee's greed and his lack of common sense. In my mind, he should have left you to your own devices, or negotiated a deal so then he could carry on with his businesses without your involvement."

Nettle didn't have time to cry out when he saw the white-green flash of light, and the terrible rushing sound that roared through his ears until his world went dark…

* * *

Harry looked down at the body with frustration. He didn't regret killing Nettle because it would've only been only a matter of time before the man learnt about him, and dealt with both him and Lee.

One thing was for sure, he would have to deal with the body quickly so then no suspicion fell on him. Before Harry had gone to that pub, he had done some research that had only been strengthened when he had looked into the mind of the man whose memory he'd modified and manipulated (he hated the necessity of that still), and he knew Nettle had enemies of his own, muggle enemies who would love to get their hands on him.

He just wished he hadn't used the killing curse here. While his flat was isolated, one of many, the Ministry could still pick up the signature of the spell and come here in force. And it meant a one way trip to prison.

Summoning the sharp knife he'd left out and hidden in the darkness so Nettle couldn't have seen it when he'd arrived, Harry bent down and swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise through his throat at what he was about to do…..

* * *

A few weeks later, in the early hours of a cold and frosty morning, Harry stood with Lee, both dressed in black as they stood in a graveyard looking down at a freshly dug plot with a black tombstone with JACK NETTLE and the man's date of birth and date of death lettered in gold. Well, Lee had to lean against him for support as his body was still recovering from the beating he'd received from Nettle's mob, but he was strong enough for this.

"Are you sure they can't trace this back to us?" Lee asked Harry.

Harry didn't look at him. "Pretty sure," he said, "I portkeyed Nettle back to the outside of his club. It might make a few suspicious about how easily he was taken by surprise, but they should just assume someone got the drop on him."

Harry didn't dare mention how he'd killed Nettle. After using the killing curse, the summoning spell and the Portkey creation, spell in the span of a few minutes, he had left his flat and spent a few nights in another flat he owned while keeping watch on his primary flat in case the Ministry turned up. But he had no intention of telling Lee that. He would later if Lee didn't learn his lesson on this occasion. Emotional blackmail material was incredibly easy to create, after all.

"It might make a few suspicious. They should just assume someone got the drop on him?" Lee repeated, putting a bit of emphasis on certain words. "You're expecting too much, Harry. They might think we had something to do with it. You did steal those vials from Nettle-"

"On your orders," Harry pointed out, "but you were hardly the only other person he was antagonising, Lee. Besides, if they had thought we had killed their boss, don't you think we'd have heard something by now? I have been keeping a watch, Lee."

Lee had to concede to the logic, and Harry considered everything that had happened over the last few weeks. When he had slit Nettle's throat, he had sent the body back the man's club, knowing it would be found either by the police or one of Nettle's mob, it didn't matter which because one or both would find out eventually. Harry had known it was fairly risky doing that, of course, since he had dealt with two of the gang, but he'd wiped their memories as well so they couldn't retain the memory of meeting him. But fortunately, Nettle's gang was thrown out of sync without their boss, and because Nettle had kept everything going on to himself and only giving his underlings the most scarce information, Harry had no idea whether they'd adapt and get a different leader who would push the gang into taking a more traditional role, or they would fold and scatter to form their own gangs or join already existing mobs. He didn't know which way the wind would turn, but he didn't think that Nettle's death would be fixed on Lee, because unknown to Lee, he had tracked down and erased the memory of the vials being taken from the safe from their minds.

The only reason he hadn't bothered telling Lee was because he wanted the older man to be worried, it might make him more cautious in the future.

* * *

FINIS - Thanks for reading.


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